Talk:aby

Etymology split?

The "endure" sense (Edmund Spenser) seems closer to abide. Equinox ◑ 20:55, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

RFV discussion: February–April 2023

This entry has survived Wiktionary's verification process (permalink).

Please do not re-nominate for verification without comprehensive reasons for doing so.

---

All forms of aby: abye, abuy, abie, etc.

Continued from Talk:abies: instead of focusing on a single inflection, I'd like to get an overview of every attested form, since the term was rarely used post-1500. This includes aby itself, which only has one quotation for the exact spelling. I think the rule is that alternative forms need 3 quotes and inflections need 1. Ioaxxere (talk) 05:57, 23 February 2023 (UTC)

I am very wary of demanding 3 cites for terms like this. Spelling was highly unstable in the Early Modern English period. Some terms which lingered into the 1500s may only be preserved in three or four texts, being spelled differently every time they were used. It would be counterproductive to delete these terms just because authors failed to settle on one spelling at the time. This, that and the other (talk) 10:20, 23 February 2023 (UTC)

@This, that and the other I have been strongly advised to never do this. See this dicussion. Ioaxxere (talk) 19:51, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

There may be cases where bending the rules makes sense (e.g., Early Modern English; even though we don't have explicit rules in place to treat it differently, I agree it's not unreasonable to be slightly more lenient), but I don't feel comfortable just giving Ioaxxere carte blanche to pass entries at their own discretion when they are questionable, because there have been at least a couple recent cases where clearly insufficient quotations were provided at the time of calling a term cited/RfV-passed.

The most recent one was only yesterday, Falklands fritillary, which at the time only had one good quotation of the noun phrase in question, and two quotations of a different noun phrase ("queen of Falklands fritillary") which happens to include the words "Falklands fritillary", but not as a grammatically separable unit, even though the person who brought it to RfV explicitly questioned whether it was citable without the word "queen". I don't think this is pedantry, like haggling over capitalization or something. (And since then more quotations have been added! Thanks for that!)

I think a good solution might be for Ioaxxere to ping TTO or another established editor to double-check the borderline cases, and only pass them once confirmation has been given. And eventually they'll get a sense for what's alright and what isn't from doing so. 70.172.194.25 21:48, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for the advice, but I've think I've had my fill of "bending the rules". Even though I agree with the reasoning brought forth by User:This, that and the other, I'm not going to pass any more questionable terms and there is clearly nothing borderline about 3 versus less than 3.

Also, you don't have to keep bringing up Falklands fritillary in unrelated discussions⁠—I interpreted "Queen of the Falklands Fritillary" as a longer version of the same term, as did 98.*. The extra quotations that I added (less than four hours later, by the way) prove that the two forms are used interchangeably. Ioaxxere (talk) 01:13, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

@Ioaxxere: just FYI, all indications are that 98.* and 70.* are the same person. Chuck Entz (talk) 02:23, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

Well, the thing is that it might not be a good idea to fail all borderline cases either — hence the suggestion of seeking another voice, which is also what AG202 recommended.

Sorry for bringing up the Falklands term. I agree they are used interchangeably, but we should ideally have quotations to show that because one would not automatically assume they were interchangeable without evidence. (Thank you once more for promptly adding the extra quotes, and all your other great work, including the majority of your RfV closures.) 70.172.194.25 04:39, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

There are already three citations for abye on the page aby.

abuy occurs here, here, here (abuying), here (abuying), here (abuying), here (abuying), here (in Middle English).

abie occurs here, here, here.

aby, in addition to the existing quote, occurs here, and here.

Someone should check that these are valid quotes. I'll be happy to format and add them once confirmed. @This, that and the other. 70.172.194.25 16:20, 23 February 2023 (UTC)

Thank you, those all look good, although we can't count the Middle English one. It might also be tricky to match them to a definition... Ioaxxere (talk) 19:51, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

RFV Passed Ioaxxere (talk) 23:38, 14 April 2023 (UTC)