Talk:cordate

RFV discussion: April–May 2022
This is for the noun sense: "Any animal with a heart." It was added last July in the edit preceding mine. When I looked up the word "cordate" on multiple dictionaries, none of them gave a definition for it as a noun. Merriam Webster, Oxford, Collins, you name it, give only the adjective sense ("heart-shaped"), with no mention of a noun sense. See for yourself here: This page is a list of links to dictionary entries on "cordate" on several online dictionaries. Inner Focus (talk) 00:03, 4 April 2022 (UTC)


 * Added 3 cites. Equinox ◑ 00:10, 4 April 2022 (UTC)
 * The 2012 cite looks to be an error for . Drosophila fruit flies have hearts, so it is (admittedly possible, but) unlikely that "animals with hearts" is what is meant. On the other hand, it would be very logical to appose arthropods and chordates in that context, especially reading the surrounding paragraphs.
 * If the other two cites are the best we can find we had better mark this as and give it a usage note... This, that and the other (talk) 10:25, 25 April 2022 (UTC)

cited (I removed the Drosophila quote as suspect). while it is true that most of the occurrences one finds are variations on Quine's classic example of the coextension problem of cordates and renates, I managed to find some other cites that are completely independent of that example. Kiwima (talk) 03:05, 4 May 2022 (UTC)

RFV-passed Kiwima (talk) 21:37, 11 May 2022 (UTC)

RFV discussion: May–August 2022
Rfv-sense. This was RFV'd recently, but, as pointed out in a recent edit, it is questionable whether the first citation is using the word to refer to an animal with a heart as opposed to just a typo for chordate. So, I am opening this RfV as a technicality, as suggested by Equinox in a reverting edit summary, even though I think the word clearly passes based on the citations from Loptson, Mulligan, and Akiba.


 * The Douarin quote is almost certainly using it to mean "chordate", both because it just makes sense (vertebrates are a clade that evolved from the larger clade of chordates), and because they are referencing a particular work by Gans and Northcutt (1983) which explicitly uses "chordates".
 * Quine is using it to refer to animals with hearts: . But you can't tell this from the quotation we give in the entry. Might be worth adding some context, with as needed. (Can anyone find the 2009 edition text?)
 * McCarthy is unclear: see the page. He's a philosopher of language partially drawing on the work of Quine, just like all the other valid usage examples are (note that they are all using it as basically an example word for the purpose of discussing logic; the word does not seem to be used in biology). But nothing in the quotation or its immediate context suggests a connection with hearts. He doesn't mention 'renates', like Quine did, and in the context either one would work. (Since both 'chordates' and 'cordates' are supersets of 'tigers'). I'm open to removing it (as Soap wanted) or keeping it (if we want to give the benefit of the doubt).

Btw, maybe we should add a sense that explains it can be a misspelling of chordate, using the Douarin quote,, , etc. 98.170.164.88 22:35, 15 May 2022 (UTC)


 * For the adjectival sense, the use of “cordate” in the quotation from the Great Soviet Encyclopedia is definitely a mistranslation or misspelled translation of . --Lambiam 10:30, 17 May 2022 (UTC)
 * There are currently five cites for the "animal with a heart" sense, to which I applied the label . The Douarin cite has been taken away to the citations page (this seems like a rare misspelling not worth including). The Loptson, Mulligan and Akiba cites are unambiguous uses. The Quine cite is actually from 1970, and I added some more context as requested. Any reason not to call this cited? This, that and the other (talk) 04:05, 21 May 2022 (UTC)
 * The Great Soviet Encyclopedia should be removed too. I would argue that since at least two of the citations Wiktionarians tried to gather for the "heart" senses ended up being misspellings of "chordate", this empirically shows that there is potential for confusion, so including the misspelling sense is justified. 98.170.164.88 08:46, 21 May 2022 (UTC)

Noun sense RFV-passed; the adjective sense is also being challenged, but currently only has one cite. This, that and the other (talk) 02:54, 11 June 2022 (UTC)

Adjective sense RFV-failed, moved the cite to the citations page. It's another philosophy text by the looks of it. This, that and the other (talk) 02:50, 19 August 2022 (UTC)