Talk:monkies

Request for deletion
Purportedly a "common" misspelling of monkeys. It has about 1-2% of the frequency of "monkeys" on the Web and less than 1% at Google Books. DCDuring TALK 00:04, 4 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, but that "less than 1%" amounts to several hundred uses, at least. Are you questioning its existence, or merely its "common"-ness? bd2412 T 03:54, 4 April 2010 (UTC)
 * If we count web hits and schoolchildren mistakes, the number is in the millions or more. The question is what we choose to include. We have no explicit criteria. I pose this case as yet another instance to help start a consensus on what explicit quantitative criteria we should use. Qualitatively, it is a plausible phonetically based spelling that nonetheless violates a general rule about plural formation. It is relatively uncommon, but much more common than many attested terms.
 * The singular {{{term|monkie}} does not appear commonly in bgc even before 1700 (2%), but monkies: is somewhat more common (15%), suggesting that the "rule" for pluralization of terms ending in "-ey" was not well established. To call it an archaically common misspelling of monkey: might be right, but would certainly be confusing. Perhaps we could say that it is an archaic alternative plural of monkey: or an archaic alternative spelling of monkeys:. DCDuring TALK 11:01, 4 April 2010 (UTC)


 * The OED lists both spellings without comment, implying that it's fairly valid. Shakespeare always seems to spell it this way, and they include citations right up to 1977. < class="latinx">Ƿidsiþ 11:35, 4 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Since I think any Shakespeare work is a well-known one, if this can be cited, it should be kept. However, that's for the archaic spelling, not the misspelling. Mglovesfun (talk) 20:56, 4 April 2010 (UTC)


 * The 1977 citation is quoting a 1756 document; the most recent original quotation is from 1928. monkie is an alternate spelling dated “pre-17 17[00s]”. It looks like monkies was much more common up to the 1800s, and I suspect that a large proportion of the “misspellings” are from old books. —Michael Z. 2010-04-04 22:48 z 


 * Oops, slight correction: “15–17 [...]; Sc.(ottish) pre-17 17”. —Michael Z. 2010-04-05 20:10 z 


 * In accordance with this apparent consensus, I am striking the RfD and altering the entry to be an archaic alternative spelling. DCDuring TALK 23:53, 4 April 2010 (UTC)