Talk:cyphonism

RFV discussion: July 2023–August 2024

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cyphonism

Large number of mentions in encyclopedias, dictionaries, and books about words and their origins for the two definitions. Hard to find genuine use at Google Books. DCDuring (talk) 16:45, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

After a good amount of digging I could only find two admissible citations plus one from a Lulu book: Citations:cyphonism. They all (I think including the Ross one) relate to sense 2 1 (smearing with honey etc). —Al-Muqanna المقنع (talk) 17:15, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

The first definition might well merit a position in the Etymology, if there were one more cite. Maybe we could find something for cyphonismus in Latin or English. DCDuring (talk) 20:40, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

Now cited that sense. @DCDuring: I added a longer etymology based on the information I could find in sources. —Al-Muqanna المقنع (talk)

After digging into the original sources I've corrected my etymology and expanded the wp article with a fully-sourced explanation. This isn't a case of conflation with scaphism or inventing a meaning—essentially there are two original sources that mention "cyphonism" and one of them goes on to describe a honey-and-insects punishment involving a cyphon pillory, without specifically saying that that is cyphonism. The pillory is involved either way, the question's just whether that in particular is what cyphonism was. That is all etymological info anyway, a generic "pillorying" sense does not seem to have appeared in actual English use. —Al-Muqanna المقنع (talk) 21:15, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

I'll bet the OED would be happy to copy our ety for this. DCDuring (talk) 21:34, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

• RFV passed Denazz (talk) 20:50, 23 August 2024 (UTC)