Talk:wisdom

No, the ability to sense right from wrong is morality or a sense of ethics. Wisdom is the ability to know what is wise vs. unwise. -- Beland

I've just started looking at things in the Wiktionary after doing a bunch of editing for the English-language Wikipedia. How is the Wiktionary supposed to handle things that would normally be a disambiguation for the Wikipedia, such as Wisdom Tooth? gK 12:42, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Thyme?
One of the definitions states that wisdom is a name for thyme. I've never heard of such use, and the example there talks about sage. Can some native speaker give a real example of it's true, or erase it of it's a mistake? 2A10:8012:19:61F7:1D0A:8B3C:51B3:FCB9 14:56, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

Wombats?
One of the definitions is "a group of wombats", based on the book "A Compendium of Collective Nouns: From an Armory of Aardvarks to a Zeal of Zebras". But this is a joke. The book contains made up definitions, purely as entertainment. If "wisdom of wombats" has achieved common usage subsequent to the publication of this book, then we should list it, otherwise the definition should be removed.


 * On a recent bike ride, I saw a group of horses and could not for the life of me remember what the proper group name was. ... In the spirit of that memory lapse, here are other random groups of creatures you might find interesting. ...
 * An army of caterpillars
 * A wisdom of wombats
 * A wisdom of wombats
 * A wisdom of wombats

Jnestorius (talk) 10:20, 5 September 2022 (UTC)


 * antedated to 4 April 2003 sandiegozoo.org "Animal Group Names" Jnestorius (talk) 19:30, 6 September 2022 (UTC)

RFV discussion: September–October 2022
Rfv-sense "A group of wombats", per a pertinent comment by IP on the talk page. &mdash; S URJECTION / T / C / L / 17:11, 4 September 2022 (UTC)


 * Cited. Interestingly enough, one of the cites is from 6 years before A Compendium of Collective Nouns was published, which leads me to believe it's a (somewhat) established term. Or it's from an even more obscure book, but that's less fun. Binarystep (talk) 05:23, 5 September 2022 (UTC)

RFV-passed This, that and the other (talk) 12:05, 5 October 2022 (UTC)

RFV discussion: September–October 2022
Rfv-sense: thyme. Challenged by an IP in the talk page: "One of the definitions states that wisdom is a name for thyme. I've never heard of such use, and the example there talks about sage. Can some native speaker give a real example [if] it's true, or erase it [if] it's a mistake?" Not in OED, haven't checked other lemmings. This, that and the other (talk) 06:41, 6 September 2022 (UTC)


 * I wonder whether "name of wisdom" in that quotation is supposed to refer to the word sage itself. The different senses of sage aren't etymologically related, but it's an easy mistake for a non-linguist to make. 98.170.164.88 06:48, 6 September 2022 (UTC)
 * The sense was added in in order to add the quote.  specializes in the worthy task of adding quotes from public domain literary works such as novels, but occasionally runs into problems due to lack of background in more specialized subjects. It certainly looks like a case of incorrectly assuming the "wisdom" reference applied to the "thyme" rather than the "sage" part of the quote. The fact that the herb name "sage" is a homograph and homophone for "sage" meaning "wise" makes it the obvious choice. That said, I'm not sure I've seen the name "wisdom" applied to sage in 50 years of reading about herbs. Chuck Entz (talk) 07:17, 6 September 2022 (UTC)
 * What I was thinking (maybe didn't express it well enough) is that "name of wisdom" could refer to the word "sage" and not even the word "wisdom" itself. This would be like if you were to call the given name "Maximillian" a "name of greatness", because it's related to the word ; but that doesn't mean "greatness" and "Maximillian" are synonyms. In the quotation, the word "wisdom" is not in quotation marks or italicized, so this reading is at least a possibility.
 * Maybe someone will dig up some quotes that prove this interpretation wrong. The closest I was able to find was searching for "herb of wisdom", which mainly brings up hits about sage but also some for thyme, rosemary, and lettuce (!). It's not clear to me that people are even using it definitionally to mean sage, though. 98.170.164.88 07:38, 6 September 2022 (UTC)


 * Landon states that sage (not thyme) has the popular name of wisdom but remember that this was in 1834. It seems very likely to me that children would associate the word wisdom with the name sage and clearly it was so associated, at least in her childhood. She may also have come across it in Yorkshire, when visiting her uncle and his large family there. It seems to be common practice to include historical meanings to words, even though they might not be in use today. I apologise for putting thyme rather than sage: that was a careless mistake on my part. It is true that I have included many quotes from Landon but then she was a person of very powerful intellect who was vastly read and she deserves to be regarded as one of the safest authorities available. Esme Shepherd (talk) 11:47, 6 September 2022 (UTC)

RFV-failed, Landon's writing is slightly ambiguous but the IP and Chuck make convincing points. This, that and the other (talk) 06:23, 17 October 2022 (UTC)