Category talk:English words which may have multiple etymologies

Category:English words which may have multiple etymologies
One entry, redundant to Category:English words with multiple etymologies. Unless of course the one entry in it only has one etymology, in which case it's redundant to erm, nothing. Mglovesfun (talk) 10:16, 25 February 2011 (UTC)
 * If one etymology section of a language section of an entry has no etymology and the other has, say, an unknown etymology, should we use Category:English words with multiple etymologies? DCDuring TALK 12:00, 25 February 2011 (UTC)!
 * Dunno really - perhaps this could be a cleanup category? Use __HIDDENCAT__ ? Mglovesfun (talk) 12:16, 25 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Nor I. I have noticed that we should have section-specific cleanup lists. But also there are some items that can't be cleaned up quickly, but need some kind of longer-term review. This category does seem a bit too specific for either short- or long-term cleanup. DCDuring TALK 19:27, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Kept: Few people, many doubts, no request for deletion. --Daniel. 18:46, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

RFD discussion: August 2016–December 2018
Do we really need a category for this? This seems more like something for WT:ES to sort out. —CodeCat 22:25, 25 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Looking at the lone entry in the cat, it's not even a word wich multiple possible etymologies (disputed), but a word with an Etym 1 and Etym 2 header (i.e. 2 diff words), so yeah, that's going to catch about 90% of all words, I ween... Leasnam (talk) 22:28, 25 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Well I think the idea was to indicate that etymology 1 and 2 may actually be the same. Hence, something for WT:ES. —CodeCat 22:33, 25 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Yep. I thought the same too Leasnam (talk) 22:38, 25 August 2016 (UTC)
 * I agree, delete as this sort of thing does not need to be categorized. Discussion instead of categorization. Renard Migrant (talk) 22:36, 25 August 2016 (UTC)


 * Yeah, I can't see a use for categorizing "words which may have multiple etymologies". As CodeCat says, start a discussion on WT:ES to determine whether they actually have multiple etymologies or not. If they have multiple etymologies, i.e. two words are on the same page, it might be useful to categorize that. I suppose there are several ways we could feasibly do that: have a bot periodically check database dumps for pages with Etymology 1 headers and categorize them, or (harder) arrange for an update to the site software that would automatically categorize any page (in certain namespaces) with an Etymology 1 header. - -sche (discuss) 23:53, 25 August 2016 (UTC)
 * ES is not going to resolve everything, though. It would probably be useful to have a category for "X terms with disputed etymologies" (but, on the other hand, it should not mean "editor McDoubtface disputes this", it should mean "there is actual scholarly dispute on the etymology", or at least "ES agrees that there are multiple possibilities"). I have a recollection that we used to have Category:English terms with undetermined etymologies etc., populateable by e.g. — but perhaps I am misremembering.
 * The restriction on disputes over the number of distinct etymologies seems patently useless, though.--Tropylium (talk) 19:57, 26 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Delete, what is this crap? Per utramque cavernam 00:17, 18 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Delete. Nobody wants to keep it. Two+ years later it still only has one member. Time for it to go. DCDuring (talk) 03:02, 18 December 2018 (UTC)


 * RFDO failed. —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 05:06, 18 December 2018 (UTC)