Talk:English disease

RFV discussion: January 2016–January 2017

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English disease

Rfv-senses

This is a tricky one. I can find quite a lot of citations along the lines of "The French used to call sweating sickness "the English disease"", but these aren't much good for our purposes. Not only is it a mention rather than a use, it's just a translation of a foreign language term rather than an English one (it would be like if we had an entry for "bottom of the bag" meaning cul-de-sac). I've collected a lot of citations at Citations:English disease, but quite a few still need bulking up. Smurrayinchester (talk) 10:04, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

(There are also some senses - syphilis especially - which can be cited, but only from historical fiction that uses the term anachronistically. An Englishman wouldn't call syphilis the English disease, they'd call it the French disease, but quite a few 21st century authors seem to have made that mistake. I suppose that still counts for RFV purposes, but it's strange) Smurrayinchester (talk) 12:00, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

• This is hard as hell, and I don't want to close it, because I'm sure those senses are real, just hard to find. @Kiwima or @Equinox or somebody, help! —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 01:57, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

• Considering this RFV is asking for 3 cites for each of 15 senses (i.e. 45 cites minimum) I think we've done pretty well. It'll live on, on the talk page, anyway. Equinox ◑ 02:07, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

• I have bulked the citations page out. Now each sense has at least the required three cites. It is up to others to decide if any of them are too mention-y. Kiwima (talk) 20:46, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

I wonder if we can say which particular senses were calqued from which language? DTLHS (talk) 19:55, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

In Dutch, Engelse ziekte refers to the habit of writing compound words with a space between the parts, which is normal for English but not for Dutch. Would this sense perhaps have bled over into English as well? —CodeCat 20:54, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

• Closed, thanks User:Kiwima. Smurrayinchester (talk) 13:54, 9 January 2017 (UTC)