Talk:father

Definition 5
Definition 5 looks incorrect. It should be “he was LIKE a father to me”, not “he was a father to me”. also, this way this definition stops being valid, thoughts?


 * Your change would invalidate the definition, yes, but it's correct as written. It's like saying "we are all brothers in this religion". Not literal brothers. A different sense of word. Equinox ◑ 03:53, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

Etymology: Oldest record of pater
Please correct me if I am wrong but we have a fact here which it should be in the etymology section. The fact is that the oldest attested record for father is the Mycenaean Greek pa-te' πατήρ (pater). Why then does a hypothesis ("Proto-Germanic *fader, Proto-Indo-European *p@ter") takes the place of the fact? Kassios 12:20, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Because Proto-Germanic and Proto-Indo-European is not a hypothesis but a solidly established theory (essentially a fact, just like dinosaurs), and Greek is not a direct ancestor of English father (nor of Latin pater), so if anything, Mycenaean Greek is the oldest attestation of the Indo-European etymon going back to Proto-Indo-European *ph₂tḗr. Also, the Vedic attestation (even if indirect) at least rivals the Greek one in age. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 01:33, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

RfD discussion for possessive form ()
Any reason why this particular possessive is kept? --Jackofclubs 13:42, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep - this use of the apostrophe is confusing for us johnny-foreigners. Παρατηρητής 14:38, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

No reason to keep that a johnny-foreigner-me can see. --Duncan 14:56, 30 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Delete; neither the possessive nor the contraction is a special case. Equinox 15:11, 30 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Delete and modify adjacent words' calls to refer to   rather than to  . (That will work, right?)—msh210  ℠  19:03, 30 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Probable Delete, but can anyone explain why we accept simple plurals (e.g. fathers) but not simple possessives? SemperBlotto 08:59, 31 December 2008 (UTC)


 * See the pertinent section of the CFI, as well as the explanation therefor. The technical argument is that the possessive “word chunks” (<’s> usually, but <’> after some terminal esses (usually sounded as )) are not suffixes but rather enclitics, added to mark the possessive of an entire noun phrase, not just a single word in it, and so, therefore, there is no “word” to speak of when we speak of the coöccurrence of +  as ʀ. †  ﴾(u):Raifʻhār (t):Doremítzwr﴿ 14:06, 31 December 2008 (UTC)


 * I would say because a plural is a "word in itself" (lexeme or something?) and may be irregular (children, cacti) or non-existent (arguably rice), whereas the possessive suffix is pretty much standard and can be tacked onto anything. For me it's a similar argument to that against the French s'en, m'a, etc. we had a while ago (though few enough agreed with me on that!). Equinox 11:21, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Deleted. DAVilla 07:13, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

British English audio file
Can someone upload a clearer version of the British English audio file? Tharthan (talk) 19:10, 16 June 2014 (UTC) BUMP Tharthan (talk) 19:24, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

Clarification needed
Why TH if in ME is D?--Manfariel (talk) 01:23, 19 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Middle English changed to  (the medial sound in ) when before unstressed -er (Middle English, Modern English ). One can also see this development in other words like  ,  , etc.

RFV discussion: April 2021
Rfv-sense "A senator of Ancient Rome.".__Gamren (talk) 19:08, 12 April 2021 (UTC)


 * I can find plenty of citations, but they all capitalize the word (except for one mention that uses the lower case to translate the Latin):
 * []
 * I suggest moving it to . Kiwima (talk) 22:31, 12 April 2021 (UTC)
 * We have this sense as a plurale tantum at . Maybe the English is likewise? Cites 2, 3, 4 at least seem to use it as a collective noun for the institution, rather than for the members of that institution. Sense 3 supports, but with different capitalization.__Gamren (talk) 23:43, 12 April 2021 (UTC)
 * The cites all use the plural mainly as an artifact of my search technique. Some of those sources also used the singular in other places. Kiwima (talk) 00:28, 13 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Ah, neat. If they also use the singular then yes, move to the capitalized form (assuming no-one else finds lowercase). :) And someone interested in Latin might look into whether is really plural-only or can also be found in the singular... - -sche (discuss) 02:26, 17 April 2021 (UTC)
 * I suggest moving it to . Kiwima (talk) 22:31, 12 April 2021 (UTC)
 * We have this sense as a plurale tantum at . Maybe the English is likewise? Cites 2, 3, 4 at least seem to use it as a collective noun for the institution, rather than for the members of that institution. Sense 3 supports, but with different capitalization.__Gamren (talk) 23:43, 12 April 2021 (UTC)
 * The cites all use the plural mainly as an artifact of my search technique. Some of those sources also used the singular in other places. Kiwima (talk) 00:28, 13 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Ah, neat. If they also use the singular then yes, move to the capitalized form (assuming no-one else finds lowercase). :) And someone interested in Latin might look into whether is really plural-only or can also be found in the singular... - -sche (discuss) 02:26, 17 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Ah, neat. If they also use the singular then yes, move to the capitalized form (assuming no-one else finds lowercase). :) And someone interested in Latin might look into whether is really plural-only or can also be found in the singular... - -sche (discuss) 02:26, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

RFV-resolved. Moved to. Kiwima (talk) 20:10, 24 April 2021 (UTC)