Talk:bridesmaiding

RFD tagged but no discussion created. Equinox ◑ 20:00, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

Discussion is at wiktionary:rfd#bridesmaiding#noun. — Pingku^dimmi 07:18, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

The following information passed a request for deletion.

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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bridesmaiding#noun

Noun sense. Looks like the present participle, in its role as gerund. Is there a reason to keep this? Does it predate the verb? — Pingku^dimmi 05:41, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

Keep. If it is attestable we should have it, whether or not any implied verb lemma exists. Does it have an attestable plural? Is the implied verb lemma attestable? DCDuring TALK 16:10, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

There are no citations claimed for the noun, which is marked uncountable and defined such as to be indistinguishable from the participle. I've added a couple more citations for the verb (not using the participle form), but you might want to look at them if this is going to be contentious. There is another available if I can locate the Dylan Thomas source. — Pingku^dimmi 17:49, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

I'm sorry I didn't look carefully at the entry. I'm confused about the appropriate venue for fundamentally empirical questions such as whether something can be shown to meet the criteria for being a noun rather than merely an -ing form. I don't see why pluralization should be the sole criterion. It certainly makes for a bias against uncountable de-verbal nouns ending in "ing".

As to formal tests for nounhood, "bridesmaiding" does not seem to attestably form a plural or accept modification by determiners or adjectives. But, unattestably, it does seem to do some of those things: "Happy bridesmaiding". "The bridesmaiding was exhausting." DCDuring TALK 18:48, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

Essentially, this is here because Wiktionary:English nouns (such as it is) seems fairly clear about not (or not "normally") listing the (deprecated template usage) -ing form as a noun when the matching verb exists (though an argument better than "that's the way things are done" would seem desirable). The meta-discussion should be somewhere else (TR or BP?). That process is likely to take a long time. In the meantime, is there a reason for keeping this noun? I had been thinking along the lines that (deprecated template usage) bridesmaiding as a noun usage might demonstrably predate the verb, or even constitute one step in the verb's creation. Does this sound feasible? Does it constitute a provable/disprovable hypothesis? [Oops, I seem to be arguing against my own proposal; but then I'm not really a deletionist. :) ] — Pingku^dimmi 18:41, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

@DCDuring: You write of "the criteria for being a noun", but no such criteria appear in WT:CFI. That means that this is not an empirical question, but a policy question. If, as, and when the policy questions are resolved, then this will (presumably) be an empirical question. —Ruakh_TALK 14:19, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

I'm not going to be making any proposals for a vote. I suggest criteria to be applied in this case. If these are accepted in this case, I and perhaps others may feel inclined to apply them in other cases. This is a common-law approach. I have an experience-based distrust of our ability to either properly draft policies or to effectively revise policies when the defects become manifest. In the meantime I suggest that we try out the criteria CGEL offers, of which those above are part in individual cases. (Verb behavior: transitives have objects, modification by adverbs. Noun behavior: plural form, modification by determiners or adjectives.)

As the scope of this is limited to the English language, perhaps the policy discussion, should there be one, should be at the talk page for Wiktionary:About English. DCDuring TALK 15:29, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

kept as no consensus. However, I do agree there should be some sort of discussion on this kind of terms - maybe the BP would be the right place to do it, since many people frequent it. -- Liliana • 12:38, 28 October 2011 (UTC)