Talk:whirlpooling

whirlpoolings
This has always bothered me: do we really need attestation of a plural form to know what it is? Especially when it is a new/recent word with a clearly regular plural formation? Seems assinine to me. Of course the plural of whirpooling would be whirlpoolings. If I were and English learner, I would be puzzled by the "plural not attested". What would I use were I the first to make a plural of it? Do we need to use common sense? Leasnam (talk) 21:30, 19 June 2012 (UTC)
 * On the other hand, it would be irresponsible to give a plural which is, as here, simply not attested at all. We are descriptive when we describe the fact that the word simply isn't pluralised. There is exactly one independent Google Books hit for "whirlpoolings", in a different sense; there is a second hit which is a quotation of the first. - -sche (discuss) 21:36, 19 June 2012 (UTC)
 * IMO, if you were the first to use the plural, we'd need to wait for two more citations. But we seem to allow non-existent verb forms to have entries. Equinox ◑ 21:38, 19 June 2012 (UTC)
 * In theory, we shouldn't have unattested verb forms; that's why Atelaes is designing the Greek inflection bot to do python corpus searches. What do you think of [[latrate]]'s format? - -sche (discuss) 21:51, 19 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Makes sense to require attestation for irregular plurals, not regular ones. English grammar/morphology rules dictate this. All concrete nouns ending in -ing: take -s: as their plural. I cannot for the life of me think of a single word which doesn't! :\ In speech you say: "one whirlpooling, two whirlpoolings." Perhaps there needs to be an exception where morphological regular particles are concerned. Leasnam (talk) 21:56, 19 June 2012 (UTC)
 * OK, I see the disconnect. Agreed: the page shouldn't be created until we have 3 attests, but the plural on the whirlpooling entry should say whirlpoolings (in red) as the plural. that's what I am trying to say. We don't have to have 3 attests to know that the plural will be whirlpoolings--that's the default form. Leasnam (talk) 17:09, 20 June 2012 (UTC)

whirlpooling - why isn't there a simple meaning, of a mass or body of water rotating?
I expected to find "whirlpooling" stated here as meaning, simply, a mass or body of water (or other liquid) rotating. Instead there are two "special" meanings. Why isn't there also that general meaning? Colin McLaughlin (talk) 11:09, 27 May 2024 (UTC)


 * ✅ Equinox ◑ 11:12, 27 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Thanks Colin McLaughlin (talk) 11:33, 27 May 2024 (UTC)