Talk:donut

RFD discussion: January–July 2016

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do donuts

Surely this is just do + donuts (sense 3)? Keith the Koala (talk) 00:32, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

I'd say so, although when I've heard this it's always involved sense 1 (doughnut). Let's do coffee and see if this phrase has sprinkles. P Aculeius (talk) 02:34, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

Yeah very strong delete. I have nothing to add, Keith's got it spot on. Renard Migrant (talk) 18:25, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

It is not quite sense 3 of donut, since it is a deliberate driving in circles rather than a skid. I suspect it also meets the fried egg rule, since it is only for a stupid driving thing, and not any other type of "donut". OTOH, I never heard this used before, and would like to see some verification of this use as common enough to warrent an entry. RFV? Kiwima (talk) 18:28, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

I've heard this used. It is definitely SOP do + donuts, but a more appropriate sense of donut must be added. By the way, you're misusing the fried egg test. The fried egg test just means that the sum has features more specific than choosing the correct definitions of the parts. In this case do + the correct definition of donut is 100% accurate. --WikiTiki89 19:40, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

There's no implied knowledge here, it is just do + donut. Renard Migrant (talk) 21:31, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

• Delete per nom. I'm pretty sure that you can "do" any shape or motion that a car can be driven in (figure eights, three-point turns, fishtails). bd2412 T 22:46, 6 January 2016 (UTC)
• The rationale that has been advanced about similar light-verb constructions (those involving verbs such as do, make, have, get, give, take, etc together with an adjective or noun [eg, donuts] that provides most of the specific meaning [See light verb on Wikipedia.Wikipedia .]) is that we need entries for them because it is not always obvious which light verb goes with which noun or adjective. In this case perhaps make or give might seem appropriate to an English-language learner. See Appendix:Collocations of do, have, make, and take for a variety of such expressions.

I've rarely agreed with the rationale, but it is fairly clear that when we vote on such matters we often vote based on specific familiarity with and attitude toward the activity involved. In this case doing donuts is a red-state, blue collar, American thing, so it is easy to get disapproving votes. In contrast we approve the activities of making amends and having an affair and therefore, I believe, of the expressions. This seems like a hell of a way to run a railroad. DCDuring TALK 00:00, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

In this case "do" is just a coincidental verb. One can use "make donuts" to mean the same thing (see 2014, Jae Byrd Wells, The "Tail" Begins - Book 1, page 111: "One jeep, occupied by two male passengers, arrived and made donuts in the parking lot hoping to drown out any harsh sounds"; Nerd Girl, chapter 23, page 1 : "We still had a solid twenty minutes before they arrived so us being teenagers made donuts in the parking lot"; 2015, Krystal Callais, Benton, Ky Teen Arrested After Found Driving Recklessly: "The deputies said that the truck then continued to make donuts in the parking lot next to the church"). bd2412 T 13:26, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

With this sense of "donuts", either "make" or "do" would work (in fact, "make" would be more natural). But there's no requirement that one use either, is there? Any equivalent verb suggesting the creation of said would work, just like "making breakfast" or "baking pies" or "flying loop-de-loops" (or loop-the-loops, if you prefer). In the example "making amends", there's hardly anything else one ever does with amends than make them; and the use of some form of "have" in "have an affair" is the signal that tells one that a "love affair" is almost certainly the sense intended; if "there was an affair" it could mean any sort of occurrence. I'd say that "do donuts" fails the fried egg test because, however restricted the use of the phrase may theoretically be, the meaning of "do" is still obvious once the sense of "donuts" is known, while "do" could easily be replaced by other verbs without altering the meaning. P Aculeius (talk) 13:28, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

Deleted. bd2412 T 20:45, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

RFM discussion: January 2021–March 2024

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donut, doughnut

Another pair of almost duplicate entries. Equinox ◑ 01:16, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

Merged. - -sche (discuss) 21:12, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

RFM discussion: September 2023–March 2024

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donut

Donut is common in American English while doughnut is common in British English. Both are considered valid spellings. Therefore, a merge is unnecessary. — This unsigned comment was added by Netizen3102 (talk • contribs) at 06:30, 15 September 2023 (UTC).

This was first proposed some two and a half years ago above at #donut, doughnut but no one has discussed it. It wouldn't be a redirect, of course, just a reduction of donut to {{alternative spelling of|doughnut}} instead of having two full-fledged entries saying the same thing. Merging seems like a good idea to me. —Mahāgaja · talk 07:13, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

The donut spelling was probably popularized by the Dunkin' Donuts chain simply because it fit better on the sign. For what it's worth, the Garfield strip text search has 126 donuts and 38 doughnuts, with a clear trend towards the shorter spelling in more recent strips. ngrams shows doughnut ahead, but not by much. —Soap— 14:58, 18 September 2023 (UTC)

There are a few terms like donut hole (the US health insurance thing) that will almost always occur with just one of the two spellings, but I agree this is best handled with a merge, whichever spelling we should choose to stabilize on. —Soap— 15:00, 18 September 2023 (UTC)

I never knew about the Garfield text database, that's awesome. It's interesting to see that in the 1980s and '90s, doughnut was more common, though donut also occurred, but since 1997 he has used the spelling donut exclusively. —Mahāgaja · talk 15:06, 18 September 2023 (UTC)

I should point out that while I support a merge, I can see a good argument for each of them being the preferred spelling, so I dont think we should start the discussion in the presumption that doughnut will be the winning target. With usage being so nearly equal, this is a difficult decision to make. —Soap— 15:05, 18 September 2023 (UTC)

The "doughnut" page is older than the "donut" page. Per policy, this means that the doughnut page must be the main lemma. CitationsFreak (talk) 15:28, 18 September 2023 (UTC)

Wait what? Is that an actual thing? AG202 (talk) 15:31, 18 September 2023 (UTC)

Whether policy of practice, that would be a historical thing, designed to harness pondism to encourage more rapid creation of entries while providing a simple rule to avoid conflicts otherwise hard to resolve in the absence of satisfactory corpora. I think it also gave an edge to right-ponders.

The donut spelling may the future of this term, judging by the number of children's book titles having that spelling. But just looking at Google Books, doughnut otherwise seems to have a narrow frequency edge. I judged by counting the number of Books pages with determiner + [do/dough]nut spellings. Since Google's algorithms are opaque, perhaps this approach is not trustworthy. I didn't look, for example, at COCA or any other corpus. We should probably give more weight to recent (21st century) relative frequency. 15:38, 18 September 2023 (UTC)DCDuring (talk)

@AG202: See WT:AEN#Regional differences. —Al-Muqanna المقنع (talk) 16:13, 18 September 2023 (UTC)

Note the top of the page: "This is a Wiktionary policy, guideline or common practices page. Specifically it is a policy think tank, working to develop a formal policy." Presumably a formal policy would be voted on. I think more recent practice (also not policy) is to try to use relative frequency in current (actually, recent past) usage to decide on which is the main entry. DCDuring (talk) 17:25, 18 September 2023 (UTC)

I prefer having the main entry at doughnut not because of frequency but simply because donut is considered a misspelling in some English-speaking countries, while doughnut is not considered a misspelling anywhere. It's similar to realise/realize (and all other -ise/-ize verbs) in that way. —Mahāgaja · talk 17:45, 18 September 2023 (UTC)

Ah. Cryptoprescriptivism! DCDuring (talk) 18:07, 18 September 2023 (UTC)

Thanks yeah, I'm glad that's not a formal policy. I think that I'd definitely prefer that it be based on relative frequency. AG202 (talk) 18:14, 18 September 2023 (UTC)

I want to point out that the spelling doughnut is also an example of U vs. non-U English. It is easy to see how the Smithsonian Magazine writing that Pres. Berdymukhamedov “performed doughnuts in his rally car” does not correspond to the everyday reality to anyone but a bunch of super-rich. Asbos called, as I have found today, “boy racer” in Britain, Tuner- und Autoposerszene by the police in Germany, obviously would be flabbergasted when confronted with thus highbrow a spelling. Not at all laddish to write that somebody “did doughnuts at a cemetery”: we see the journalist, or editorial interference (one reason why I distrust word frequency statistics made by the help of newspapers).

Because we, though championing a heart for the rich, have as much a democratic as an elitarian mindset, I believe it to follow that all should be put at donut, to avoid duplication and misleading labels.

I have seen on the page sely how alternative form pages can also claim that an alternative spelling is particularly or more used in particular meanings, if that is felt necessary. Fay Freak (talk) 12:41, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

Merged by -sche. J3133 (talk) 03:02, 30 March 2024 (UTC)