Talk:wherenot

RFV

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"Of what, in a negative way; of affirming a negative point of view. Affirming a negative place." Backed up by a supposed quotation from Shakespeare's Hamlet that appears to be completely fake. Equinox ◑ 18:56, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

• Seems to be a copyvio of wordstash (should that be wordtosh!). SemperBlotto 19:06, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Yuck, that site is yet another confirmation of my long-held opinion that any site proclaiming its contents to be "awesome" is inevitably terrible. Equinox ◑ 19:11, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

• That page states, "Definitions from Wiktionary under the GNU FDL." So certainly not a copyvio from there, at least. —Ruakh_TALK 23:51, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

• Doesn't exist. How did this survive so long? Ƿidsiþ 19:36, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

I only happened upon it in the alphabetical navbar because I was trying to decide whether whereonto is always a scanno for whereunto (it seems so). Equinox ◑ 19:39, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

• Deleted (out of process, but what the hell) SemperBlotto 21:18, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

The series of letters seems to have been used by Faulker, but I haven't the foggiest idea what it means. - -sche (discuss) 23:29, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

I've found a handful of citations. It seems to mean something like "wherever"...? - -sche (discuss) 23:48, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

Good cites! Judging from the apparent meaning, I'm assuming it's formed by analogy with whatnot. —Ruakh_TALK 23:55, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

Fascinating. Brilliant citations, nice one. Ƿidsiþ 19:02, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

So... restore? DAVilla 07:06, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Or start from scratch — "of what, in a negative way; affirming a negative" isn't an attested meaning of the word, AFAICT (unless that's what the entirely opaque ship-capture quotation is about), so that was rightly deleted. Problem is, I'm not quite sure how to phase the attested meaning. "(To) other related places; (to) wherever", on the model Ruakh points out of "whatnot"? Is Faulkner's line intelligible if "wherenot" has that definition? - -sche (discuss) 07:21, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

(deprecated template usage) whatnot used to be two words, and I find with a little searching that this appears as two words as well. "His birth-places too were England, Cornwall, Scotland, France, and where not?"....also "Whilst as yet a boy, he lived in many schools, Wallingford, Saint Paul's, Eton, whence he went to Trinity Hall, in Cambridge ; when a man, in Staffordshire, Suffolk, Norfolk, Cambridge, London, and where not!" So I think we can say the one-word form developed from that, and yes, it seems to mean "wherever you like", "anywhere at all". Ƿidsiþ 07:44, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Resolved, I think. - -sche (discuss) 20:26, 29 July 2011 (UTC)