Talk:bloke

I have a vague memory of hearing somewhere that the original meaning approximated to "boss" with a usage similar to that of the word "gaffer".

Date first attested

 * Can you please hold a conversation here instead of edit-warring? This is getting incredibly irritating. — Eru·tuon 22:29, 7 January 2020 (UTC)


 * I made some improvements per the relevant OED entry and was met with a blanket revert and some ipse dixit pronouncements. Things have deteriorated since then. White whirlwind (talk) 23:11, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

I tried explaining my revert at their talk page in order to avoid edit warring but it hasn't worked. Believe you me, there are thousands of other things I'd rather be doing but I just can't accept users arbitrarily deleting specific dates of attestation and replacing them with vague timeframes. I really don't want to block this user or protect this page but if insists on playing this game, they leave me with no choice. PS: the first quote is from 1847 where the archaic form appears for the first time, so we have a specific date of attestation. --Robbie SWE (talk) 23:17, 7 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Why have you been replacing the 1847 date of first attestation with "mid-19th century"? You say "Do you understand that the date is wrong per the OED entry I referenced earlier?" (where I guess you mean Online Etymology Dictionary rather than Oxford English Dictionary; unrelated, the Oxford English Dictionary's first quotation is from 1861), but there's a 1847 citation given in our entry, George W. M. Reynolds, The Mysteries of London, and the Online Etymology Dictionary does not state that our citation is fictitious. — Eru·tuon 01:04, 8 January 2020 (UTC)


 * Why in the world would I use "OED" to refer to anything other than the Oxford English Dictionary? I'm unaware of that acronym referring to anything else of substance, especially in this context. You're both getting to my point, which that I believe the supposed first attestation here of 1847 is probably wrong. What is the source we're relying on for the proposition that the Reynolds quote is in the sense defined here? Why doesn't the most recent update of the OED include Reynolds' quote? They're always on the lookout for earlier attestations, and unlike us are actually qualified to do original research. I was afraid of sloppy work here (I'm guilty of sloppy explaining, I admit) and what I'm seeing here is tending to confirm it. White whirlwind (talk) 05:51, 8 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I guessed you were referring to the Online Etymology Dictionary because you hadn't added a reference to the proper OED, and because the Online Etymology Dictionary doesn't mention the 1847 date either. — Eru·tuon 05:57, 8 January 2020 (UTC)
 * It's indeed strange to use OED for anything else. Except for Oxford Dictionaries Online (now called Lexico) – I've seen multiple people online, and an Android app, call it OED. (This annoys the hell out of me because it's nothing like the real thing.) Anyway, thanks for the clarification. The 1847 quote uses strange words so I'm not really sure what it means. It was added in this edit by User:IMC1, who has added other quotes from odd sources (see Special:Contributions/IMC1). — Eru·tuon 07:22, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

You can find the original quote here, with two mentions here and here. According to A Dictionary of the Underworld: British and American, by Eric Partridge (2015), page 50, the term itself is actually first attested in 1839, but it also mentions the quote from 1847. This warrants a reinstatement of the template with a specific date, I suggest 1839. For additional referencing, consider The Routledge Dictionary of Historical Slang, by Eric Partridge (2003), page 425 which gives a pretty good timeline. --Robbie SWE (talk) 10:29, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

RFV discussion: December 2020
"(Britain, informal) A man who behaves in a particularly laddish or overtly heterosexual manner." Oh? I thought it just meant man. Equinox ◑ 16:41, 13 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I have certainly heard it used this way, but it is going to be difficult to find cites that capture that. It is more often seen by use of the term.
 * Then again, this seems to be cited Kiwima (talk) 18:48, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

RFV-passed Kiwima (talk) 20:27, 21 December 2020 (UTC)