Talk:mel

The noun needs a style note, as this is not everyday English. Is it medical, poetical, technical, literary...? Is it countable? &mdash; Paul G 14:06, 28 Jun 2004 (UTC)


 * 10 years and still no note.... things happen slowly around here. I'd add one now but I've never seen this word before. 106.68.149.182 06:11, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

RFV
Is really English? —Stephen (Talk) 20:36, 3 September 2014 (UTC)


 * I suspect not. It occurs in some fixed Latin phrases (mel boraeis, mel rosae, mel roset, mel rosat...) and derivatives (melrose, oxymel, hydromel, oenomel...), but AFAIK not alone. Equinox ◑ 02:01, 4 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Maybe in ingredients lists where they have "aqua" for water. I dont know if that's meant to make it easier for non-English speakers to understand or if it's some legal thing that it's not healthy enough if it doesn't give the chemical formula of water. Soap (talk) 22:52, 5 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Failed RFV. Equinox ◑ 17:25, 22 March 2015 (UTC)

RFV mel (Latin) [2018-10]
As I'm not 100% sure I understand what the issues raised are, I'll try to restate them (note that they're not my complaints):

i) L&S gives the ablative as "melli", but Wiktionary lists "melle" as the main form and just mentions "melli" in a note as an additional form.

ii) L&S's source for "melli" is Plaut. Truc. 2, 4, 20 (Truculentus), but the link on the L&S definition of mel on Perseus seems to be dead, and L&S don't list the edition of Truculuntus that they relied on, so the (primary) source is unverified, and the "melli" ablative form of "mel" unsupported.

iii) Plautus was "Old Latin", not Latin, so even if the source were verified, it would not be a valid support for "melli" ablative form of "mel".

Regarding i) "melle" is the standard sg. ablative for a 3rd declension verb with an i-stem, so the burden of proof doesn't have to be very high. Searching Perseus for "melle" yields many results many of which are clearly the ablative, so (IMO) the main form does not need to be changed.

Re: ii) Also seems to be OK. A 1576 edition of Plautus's plays (regrettably on Google Books) gives the sentence as "ah hoc est melli dulci dulcius" (as L&S report it).

Interestingly, later sources use the "melle" form:

The Latin Library has the relevant line as "heia, hoc est melle dulci dulcius". A bilingual French-Latin edition of Plautus from 1831 has "ah, hoc est mel melle dulci dulcius". An Oxford edition from the early 20th century has "heia! hoc est melle dulci dulcius".

This is probably a case of hypercorrectness (the editors thought that the ablative should be "melle" and hence changed it to that).

I'll pass on iii) as I'm not a qualified linguist. --Gephyra (talk) 23:15, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

I have fairly good Latin knowledge. My thoughts:

ii) L&S is clearly relying on an older edition. The Oxford Classical Texts edition by Lindsay reads "melle," as does the Loeb Classical Library edition by W. de Melo; both are now standard reference points. The Oxford Latin Dictionary (newer standard) by contrast does not indicate any variant form for the abl. sg. of "mel." iii) Plautus' Latin is certainly Latin, not some other language; it does include some older forms. But saying that it's not Latin would be like saying that Shakespeare didn't write in English. In any case, the point is moot because "melli" is not in fact attested by current editions of Plautus' text.

75.21.96.169 01:00, 15 February 2019 (UTC)