Talk:thereagain

RFC discussion: October–November 2013

The following discussion has been moved from Wiktionary:Requests for cleanup.

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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thereagain

Something is wrong. Possibilities include:

1. This is a Middle English, not English word.
2. There is a missing English word (deprecated template usage) again, from which this word derives.
3. The word is borrowed into English from Scottish or Middle English.

I don't have the resources to resolve this. DCDuring TALK 22:33, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

I read in a search result (but not on the page linked to - damn those snippet views) that "Thereagain and thereagainst are given as two different entries in the OED but their meanings are exactly parallel. The first OED entry for thereagain comes from 1023, the first occurrence in the Helsinki Corpus is nearly 150 years earlier (878)." — Pingku^dimmi 12:39, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

The synonymous thereagainst seems plausible in contemporary usage, though it would probably be called archaic. I guess one question is when thereagain went out of usage in English, ie, became obsolete. That would address the first possibility.

I think I'll go with the third possibility. DCDuring TALK 15:57, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

Thereagain, we (and the OED) seem to be missing current (dialectal?, rare?) usage (as I've just used it), meaning something similar to "however" but slightly stronger. Is this the last remaining vestige of the word labelled as obsolete? Dbfirs 18:24, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

I always thought that that was due to confusion with then again. --WikiTiki89 18:52, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

You might be right, or it could be the other way round. I can't find enough evidence for which is the older usage, so I can't prove my claim. Dbfirs 20:44, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

The meaning "however" can be logically derived from "then + again", but not quite from "there + again". Therefore I can't see it being the other way around. --WikiTiki89 21:02, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

Thereagain, that might be just a false etymology coined by those who don't understand the word thereagain which has meant contrariwise; on the other side for the last thousand years according to the OED. I've added a cite to again to illustrate that it still means against in northern England (and not just Scottish or Middle English). Dbfirs 21:34, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

The entry seems "clean" enough now, but it could use some polishing: the "obsolete" tag might not be correct. I suppose that we need some evidence or authority or, at least, prevailing opinion that it is in more-or-less current use somewhere. DCDuring TALK 19:55, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

Isn't that spelt as "there again"? Of the 633 pages with "there again" (searching on google in discussions), 330 have but there again, as far as I can tell often meaning on the other hand. --80.114.178.7 11:50, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

Yes, it does seem like a reanalysis of thereagain resulting from the loss of familiarity with the use of again ("against") as a preposition and the fossilization of all the words constructed as there + a preposition. DCDuring TALK 13:45, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

I don't think it has to have but. There again I might be wrong. DCDuring TALK 13:56, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

I don't know whether it has to have "but there again" in 2013. If this sense is mostly used as but there again (and unrelated senses of there again keep being used like before), this sense will require but in the future, because that will be the predominent way people will have heard it. You're a native speaker, how does "however there again" compare to "but there again"? --80.114.178.7 23:38, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

I think the(re|n) again is a survival/remnant of the old meaning on the other hand of "again". --80.114.178.7 23:38, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

A link to daarentegen (“on the other hand”) might help. I first wrote "the(re|n) again", then remembered daarentegen, but not everyone might link gain#Etymology 1, tegen#Dutch and gegen#German. --80.114.178.7 00:03, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

Feel free to add what you think is right to thereagain, there again, then again, or any other entry. I'll take a look at the three and alter them to fit our formatting if necessary. DCDuring TALK 01:52, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

Citations:again. Thanks in advance. --80.114.178.7 22:58, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

No need anymore, Ivan Štambuk deleted it. --80.114.178.7 23:54, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Had you tried clicking of the supposed links that you provided? They were unusable. DCDuring TALK 01:52, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

As far as I remember, I did. --80.114.178.7 18:10, 20 November 2013 (UTC)