Talk:-tron

RFV discussion: May–July 2018
"Used as a gender-neutral suffix as an alternative to -ter or -tress". The only example given is waitron, but that entry doesn't mention -tron, mentioning patron as the origin instead. Equinox ◑ 18:35, 4 May 2018 (UTC)


 * In waitron, the suffix seems like -ron, anyway: we don't have English entries for -ter or -tress, only -er and -ress (and -ess). Merriam-Webster does claim waitron uses -tron, saying it is suggestive of "the machinelike impersonality of waiting tables", but they then link it to, which strikes me as fanciful at best. Paul McFedries, Word Spy: The Word Lover's Guide to Modern Culture (2004, ISBN 076791807X) agrees that the suffix, to the extent it exists, is -ron, claiming to know of examples of seamstron, actron and laundron from 1992. I find a citation from 1995, Citations:laundron. Other sites also mention actron as a derivation of -tron or -ron, but when I try searching for it or "huntron", brand names crowd out any valid hits there might be. "Dominatron" is too often a scanno to find anything useful. - -sche (discuss) 05:27, 6 May 2018 (UTC)


 * DCDuring opined once that three citations of words using a suffix could be enough to verify it (as distinct from three attested words using the suffix, which would take three citations each, nine total). If I could find a citation of another of the words mentioned above, I'd suggest moving this to -ron, but as it is, I can only find waitron and the one citation of laundron. The latter does seem to confirm that it's not -tron, but the citation could mean something more like "mechanical laundry-machine" rather than "gender-neutral laundry-doer" (it can be hard to distinguish from just a snippet!), compare the two different senses of waitron. - -sche (discuss) 20:36, 14 May 2018 (UTC)


 * RFV-failed. Two words use a genderless suffix -ron (we would probably need at least three before an entry could be created); none, AFAICT, use -tron (pace Merriam-Webster). - -sche (discuss) 07:34, 28 July 2018 (UTC)

"or English cyclotron" leads to a circular definition. I searched how to mark it as such, but haven't found it. Maybe there should be a menu to select such things in the editor.