Talk:xertz

RFV discussion: May 2023–March 2024

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xertz

Is this real? —Mahāgaja · talk 22:26, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

Many of this user's recent creations need attention. Equinox ◑ 15:36, 5 May 2023 (UTC)

I've created Citations:xertz with a couple of cites but the term barely appears outside of "fancy words"-type lists. Einstein2 (talk) 15:58, 5 May 2023 (UTC)

The word reminds me of one of those text adventure games from the 80s, the ones played on those old computers. Maybe that's the origin? CitationsFreak (talk) 05:18, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

Found third cite, even earlier than the rest. (It makes no sense to me, but hey. That's the way things go.) CitationsFreak (talk) 06:32, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

I saw that cite in my own searches for attestation but didn't add it because IMO it doesn't meet the "conveying meaning" criterion of CFI; it's gibberish (non)word salad. (It arguably doesn't even meet the criterion to include the RFVed, English word, since the assignment of that "jaap graupel xertzing utemis quoth wumk" to English seems...debatable.) - -sche (discuss) 23:54, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

A decent chunk of it are words that can be found in English. CitationsFreak (talk) 08:37, 10 December 2023 (UTC)

There are two durably archived cites (one Usenet and one book) and four Twitter cites. This would need a vote in order to be kept. This, that and the other (talk) 05:18, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

RFV-failed for now. Maybe in time a third use will happen. - -sche (discuss) 15:27, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

There was a third book cite, but it was deleted for being nonsense by -sche. CitationsFreak (talk) 18:11, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

Indeed, because CFI requires that a string of letters not merely exist, but actually be used to convey the relevant meaning, which machine- or human-generated word salads, including the one you added, don't help with. For anyone wondering, the relevant 'sentence' in that book was "gingerly methodical, jaap graupel xertzing utemis quoth wumk aloft in thermals' cookiecutter, rom among the ram, diffident, maladroit risible kilest eclat abruptly shines your vague, beatrice, firetruck laving curveball english, defrocked alive, shocking the green knight miming dialectic woodpeckers, hollow, beheaded, impulsing, floating lotus, pugilist moon, window cigarette, enigma rhapsodies rocket to dawn breathless, hyperborean, virgil greyhounds deep outside the antler's womb moans a joyful tune, headbanging mistaken raindrop, bottled up by options ignoring giant wisdom, hazelnut epidermis maelstroming friendship cottoning to the light, yining the yang, the white strawberry climbs upon the arrowing heart, looks adieu, illumination iceblock, drumel, paraphing redwings' jimjam, beard, eyrie, mind whispers, sparrow vermiculated for its geode jaywalking across my heartbeat, gossamer ocean coin flip death is just another threshold, mystical skeletons burn & fade in waves enlightened lux glancing touch, askance, the looks pellucid rue, mouth scissoring through the wind, teaking blindspots, darting feints, I object to your objectivity toenailing a comma, merrygorounding umbilicals' never again of enough raving embezzled ambrosia weightless, the noodle swims with her leg UP. PARAPHING YONDER THAN YET SO WHILE AS THEN-redtape bookworms 71 East North West South." - -sche (discuss) 18:31, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

@-sche: I added a quotation from A Rewording Life (2015), a list of words by Sheryl Gordon and over 1000 Canadian contributors. The word xertz is not defined, but as the quotation is from the word’s own entry (by the poet Charmaine Cadeau), it might not be considered acceptable. J3133 (talk) 18:45, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

Good find. The question there is whether Cadeau's sentence counts as "conveying use" or as a "made-up example[] of how a word might be used", yes? Hmm... it's an unusual case; a dictionary with a few editors providing (uncredited) made-up example sentences is one thing, but here the editors seem to have solicited different authors to use (or make up examples of, depending on how one interprets it) each word. I can find another similarly borderline cite, here, which first has a glossary entry for the word (not acceptable / useful), but later uses the word in the definition of another word (very borderline but technically cromulent). OK, I think between these two borderline instances and the web cites, we can conclude that this exists after all (I've restored the entry). - -sche (discuss) 19:53, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

I say that the University of Alberta cite is fine, since it uses the word, even though it's defined in the same article. Mrs. Byrne also lists the word in her dictionary of weird words. It's in the 1974 copy. She says that they all came from dictionaries, so this word may be older than we think. CitationsFreak (talk) 23:44, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

I do wonder if it is actually word salad, or just a really-hard-to-understand poem. (The "sentence" has line breaks in it, reading "gingerly methodical, jaap graupel xertzing utemis quoth wumk / aloft in thermals' cookiecutter, rom along the ram. diffident, maladriot...") CitationsFreak (talk) 21:30, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

There's method to its madness, but it's still madness. I interpret it as a series of things that start to make sense interspersed with things intended to jolt you out of making sense of it all. I'm sure the parts are carefully chosen and their arrangement carefully planned out, but it's not using the words and phrases to convey meaning in the sense that CFI requires. There are cases where this kind of deliberate obscurity can lead to terms taking on new meanings, but that's only after they're adopted and used that way. Rhyming slang, for instance, isn't attestation of the original meanings, but of the new meanings- not on your Nellie isn't attestation of the name, "Nellie", but of a rhyming slang word for "life". Since the quote in question is a one-off, it's useless for CFI. Chuck Entz (talk) 22:43, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

I do feel that "xertzing" is being used as its meaning, although words like "jaap" and "kilest" really adds a question mark to my theory. However, I suppose that this fight is pointless, since we have a better cite (the University of Alberta quote). CitationsFreak (talk) 23:33, 23 March 2024 (UTC)