Talk:forgetness

There are no citations between the end of the Middle English period and the late 19th century. I don't think there's any basis for saying this was derived from Middle English (also the OED has a quotation for "forgeteness", so it's not unattested). DTLHS (talk) 15:44, 19 August 2016 (UTC)
 * A parallel to this word and a clue to its formation is found in foregiveness, which we have a historical track record of (= forgiven-ness). Forgetness may have been formed on analogy with it, or may have derived from a dialectal word going back to a ME *forgeteness (= forgeten-ness), which is why we don't now see it as "forgotness". Either is fine. I'll have to delve deeper into it later when I have more time :) Leasnam (talk) 15:49, 19 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Just a quick look reveals Caxton has forgetenes Leasnam (talk) 15:53, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

, Okay, I didn't read your original statement correctly :/ ... I hear you now. The meanings are the same ("forgetfulness") between the two, which is noteworthy. What I think happens often in English is that modern writers who are steeped in earlier writings (EME & ME) will often re-use or revive an older term, especially if it's transparent to Modern readers like this one is. If this word faded in popularity in EME and then resurfaced again, what would we call that ? A borrowing from Early Modern English ? In most cases like this, I find it easier to just bridge the gap and say the word fell out of favour but then fell back in later than to assume it died then a new formation was created. In cases where it's unclear, I will admit I lean towards the continuity of English. It's not a secret. And I'm not ashamed of it :) Leasnam (talk) 17:45, 19 August 2016 (UTC)
 * I think what you did is fine. DTLHS (talk) 18:07, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

RFV discussion: August 2016–May 2017
This is the first time i'm using RFV. Sorry if this is not done correctly.

The article has 3 quotes, but they seem to be examples of very different meanings, which shouldn't be listed as supporting a single meaning consisting of a list of different meanings, as is the case now.

There seem to be more than 1000 hits at Google Books, but i haven't had time to look at any of them. Most importantly, the word isn't in any dictionary i own or in any free online dictionary, so the article should at least mention that this is a very rare term and not considered to be a "real" or "correct" word by most native speakers.

It's not in the single-volume printed OED or the free online Oxford Dictionaries. Is it in the full version? --Espoo (talk) 07:45, 19 August 2016 (UTC)
 * What do you think the meanings of the quotes are? They all seem to fit under "forgetfulness" to me. And yes it is in the full OED. DTLHS (talk) 15:19, 19 August 2016 (UTC)
 * I added a few more citations and added to the definition. I don't think it's as non-standard or rare as it once was, where it used to be a byform to forgetfulness, but it's becoming increasingly more popular now for it's directness and no-nonsense appeal as a term for "the act of forgetting; forgetting" Leasnam (talk) 15:32, 19 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks, but according to Ngram Viewer it seems to be extremely rare. I'd found this result but forgot to mention it above and only mentioned that the word is not in any dictionaries i could access. Is it labeled extremely rare in OED? I'm confused by the Ngram Viewer result since Google Books finds more than 1000 hits. I always thought GB hit amounts were more accurate than hit amounts of normal Google searches, which include pages that only have the word in hidden misspellings and synonyms. --Espoo (talk) 03:57, 22 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Google Books is where most of that inaccuracy comes from, due to scannos, misinterpreted hyphenations, and other problems with OCR. It's also true that any Google search that goes to multiple pages almost invariable overestimates the actual number of hits. Chuck Entz (talk) 04:27, 22 August 2016 (UTC)

RFV-passed Kiwima (talk) 18:24, 15 May 2017 (UTC)