Talk:withspeak

RFV discussion: October–November 2017
Both senses. Only one cite for each. Not to be found at OneLook or Century 1911. OED? DCDuring (talk) 20:32, 9 October 2017 (UTC)
 * I've added the two uses mentioned in the Cleanup Request, and added another. There is yet another that apparently exists, but which I cannot 100% verify due to a snippet view. But the remaining language in the view and the way the word is used, I can hardly see how it cannot be the same word meaning "contradict". It's not added to the entry, but it is here if anyone is able to get a better view [], the entire Search Result is: Never found I any guilt in thee, nor any blame of evils wrought ; and yet thou speakest words as though thou wert full of all transgression and direful deed." (Joseph.) " I have known too much of bale by this child-bearing. How may I withspeak ...


 * As far as sense #2, I am beginning to be doubtful that the definition given "To direct conversation or questions (to)" is adequate. I've made some addition to it Leasnam (talk) 21:08, 9 October 2017 (UTC)
 * The second sense has two citations from the same work by the same author. And, as you suggest, the word is not used unambiguously.
 * I have added more surrounding text and a url to the citations of the first sense.
 * I still cannot get an unambiguous reading of the 1984 citation without having, in the course of this discussion, learned that with- and wider- were cognates, which hardly supports the proposition that withspeak is part of the language. To me, this need to be a linguist to understand the supposed meaning is consistent with the fact that the term is mentioned not used, as a surface reading of the citation would also suggest.
 * If withspeak were a nonce coinage which was not mentioned anywhere else in the literature, and was not found in English language historically, I might be inclined to agree with you on this. But I cannot think that this instance is a completely independent creation off the top of the author's head. The author clearly is alluding to the existence of this word, which around that time (1984) was obsolete. It's is not uncommon knowledge that withspeak means "contradict". One look here [] will tell you that. People knew about it, and knowing it, they used it. In the same way that we cannot misdirect learners on what correct English is, we also cannot dictate to them how to speak the language. If they want to speak like Shakespeare, or King Alfred, they have every right to do so. Leasnam (talk) 17:06, 10 October 2017 (UTC)
 * If with= were a productive suffix or if readers/hearers were linguists it would be "not uncommon knowledge that withspeak means contradict", but those are not the facts. DCDuring (talk) 10:03, 12 October 2017 (UTC)
 * I simply don't understand the fourth citation, specifically what they refers to in "This was exemplified by many debates during the 2002/03 Convention on a constitutional Treaty, the numerous misunderstandings and errors in the services discussions in the period 2004 - 2006 and the frequent caricatures of the IM in the French referendum debates in 2005 (and the fact that they were hardly withspoken), to mention only a few harmful instances." Without that understanding I find it hard to get an unambiguous meaning of the word in context. Reading the surrounding text (via url) clearly shows that the authors are not native speakers and not EN-4 or EN-5, so one suspects a kind of calque. DCDuring (talk) 12:41, 10 October 2017 (UTC)
 * It doesn't matter if they are non-native speakers. The fact is: if they know what withspeak means, and it's clear it means "contradict" here ( c'man...) as it does everywhere else, and their spellchecker is clearly underlining the word...they still chose to use this word. They have that right. Let's not think that in today's world that non-natives cannot speak English. They can. And they do. Besides, everything else in that passage indicates that the author has a fairly high degree of expertise in English language, so the appearance of this word cannot be inferred as anything but intentional. Leasnam (talk) 17:27, 10 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Almost all of the non-native speakers in question are German or Dutch. It's possible that they're assuming that 🇨🇬/🇨🇬 have English cognates and guessing withspeak, perhaps based on the model of something like 🇨🇬/🇨🇬 <==>withstand. Chuck Entz (talk) 02:12, 11 October 2017 (UTC)
 * No. Probably not. For if that were the case, then we'd see a greater array of Germanised calques, which we do not (unless you count above ;P). Only someone with a deep study of English in all its stages would be able to come up with withspeak (and not witherspeak), and if they have that much knowledge of English, then they would know that that word is not commonly used. I guarantee you they didn't learn that word in English class.  is not an prolific prefix in English, so this could not have happened by chance, as with, say,  or . Chances are they read a book about English, and saw where previous writers had replaced  with, and thought: "Hrm...withspeak, I kinda like that word." Perhaps they even thought: "hrm...sounds a lot like , I think I'll use it", which they did. They have that option. But I do not believe it was a mistake or by accident. Germans (and I'm part German so I can say this) are notorious for overusing Latinate words in English, to a fault ! So no, I do not believe this was an accident Leasnam (talk) 11:41, 11 October 2017 (UTC)
 * I find it implausible that an expert user of English doing academic writing would deliberately use a word that they know is extremely rare and incomprehensible to most English speakers instead of a much more common word with the meaning they're looking for. Chuck Entz's explanation, that it's an error based on the existence of the corresponding German/Dutch word, seems much more likely to me. —Granger (talk · contribs) 12:01, 11 October 2017 (UTC)
 * I suppose. We can only speculate short of contacting them and asking them. Even so, they used correctly, semantically and grammatically Leasnam (talk) 12:30, 11 October 2017 (UTC)
 * "Colorless green ideas sleep furiously" DCDuring (talk) 15:10, 11 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Your argument that the authors "used correctly, semantically" begs the question. Grammatical correctness is no great achievement as the famous Chomsky example above demonstrates. DCDuring (talk) 10:05, 12 October 2017 (UTC)
 * They probably learned the word from Wiktionary. Haw! Equinox ◑ 12:43, 10 October 2017 (UTC)
 * I'd worry about that kind of thing, but in this case their use (2008) antedates the entry (2010) by two years. DCDuring (talk) 12:50, 10 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Worry not. Not a single author has used the word, native or otherwise. Withspeak is mentioned in many places other than Wiktionary ;) Leasnam (talk) 16:57, 10 October 2017 (UTC)


 * I still don't get the meaning of the fourth citation, which seems in context to be a clear example of clumsy, error-laden English from speakers of other languages who lack the energy to use a dictionary and instead use calque=like words.
 * Which of the possible references of they fit with the definition "contradict". "This was exemplified by many debates during the 2002/03 Convention on a constitutional Treaty, the numerous misunderstandings and errors in the services discussions in the period 2004 - 2006 and the frequent caricatures of the IM in the French referendum debates in 2005 (and the fact that they were hardly withspoken), to mention only a few harmful instances." Debates, misunderstandings and errors, services discussions, caricatures. The most plausible is misunderstandings and errors  and  caricatures. If so, the use supports a definition like "correct", "refute", "dispute", "challenge", "criticize", "reject" or "oppose", not "speak against, contradict". The use is simply ambiguous.
 * As citation 1 is a mention and citation 4 is ambiguous with respect to the definition offered, we need another citation. Perhaps Google Scholar offers something. DCDuring (talk) 10:03, 12 October 2017 (UTC)
 * The first sense is now cited. Whether it was a mistaken construction of English is immaterial. Still need one more cite for the second sense. Khemehekis (talk) 05:55, 9 November 2017 (UTC)

RFV-resolved. First sense passes. Second sense is only used by Ian McDonald (both quotes were by him), and is likely an idiosyncratic error. Kiwima (talk) 03:46, 13 November 2017 (UTC)

RFC discussion: October 2017–February 2021
This English entry was created 7 years ago by User:Leasnam with two senses: There were two quotes added at the time it was created. The first (on the first sense) is a quote from a science fiction short story which gives the word as an example of a made-up Germanized substitute for contradict, albeit in a sentence. The second (on the second sense), used it as a one-off science fiction coinage for some kind of telepathic or other deeper-level communication, which doesn't match the second sense at all.
 * 1) To contradict; speak against.
 * 2) To gainsay; renounce.

User:-sche changed the second sense to (sort of) match the quote:
 * 1) To direct conversation or questions (to).

I've only been able to find a couple of actual uses in Books (here and here) and a couple dozen uses in Groups (mostly not Usenet) by a few non-native speakers, supporting the "contradict" part of the first, so it might squeak by rfv. I'm not sure what the original second sense even means, since gainsay and contradict are synonyms and renounce means something else. The replacement second sense is only found in the one science fiction short story quoted, and it's in-universe at that.

I'm not sure exactly how to approach this. I'm not sure whether it would be worthwhile to rfv the first sense, but it should be labeled as rare or nonstandard, or something. I'm not sure if archaic makes sense, since I can't find anything more than a century old (Middle English has it, but under a different spelling). Maybe I'll rfv the second sense. The quotes already in the entry should probably be removed- if not, the author attribution needs to be corrected on both. Chuck Entz (talk) 04:34, 8 October 2017 (UTC)
 * To me we seem to have as many as 5 definitions offered and two citations which are, erm, ambiguous, possibly irrelevant. For example, is "speak against" meant to be the same as "contradict" or is it something akin to "denounce"? I propose that we limit the damage that this entry can cause should it prove as wrong as it seems by inserting for each of the five definitions. And that we RfV each of the five definitions. Century 1911 doesn't have an entry, though they do have one for withsay.
 * The practice of starting an entry from its etymology, making sloppy definitions, and offering such shoddy "evidence" makes for bad entries, as we have seen before. DCDuring (talk) 15:00, 8 October 2017 (UTC)
 * What we need to also do (in addition to the suggestions (?) mentioned above) is to quit thinking that entry creation is ever a final step in adding any term--preferably it is; but sometimes it is not, despite best efforts to make it so. The whole purpose of this project is to allow for multiple user inputs to ensure things are correct and balanced. So if it needs cleaning up, let's clean it up. Yeah, if you're expecting everything I do to be perfect all the time, well I've got disappointing news for you... Leasnam (talk) 13:41, 9 October 2017 (UTC)
 * @DCDuring, and to answer to your comment about the etymological connection, No, the last known definition is not a surefire way to know how the word is used/will be used today, but it is absolutely the most logical place to start with, especially when the current usage is rather fuzzy Leasnam (talk) 13:57, 9 October 2017 (UTC)
 * For sense #2, I believe we could also add "speak or answer back", no ? That is not an inherited sense, but it is analogous to what connotes in related modern words, like, , so it seems like the author might mean "the only timeframe in which he could speak/answer back to the Spirit Ring" Leasnam (talk) 15:38, 9 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Both the "1957" (really 1999) and 2010 quotes added to sense 2 are both from the same short story, "The days of Solomon Gursky", by Ian McDonald, which appeared in several anthologies. In both cases you attributed it to the editor of the anthology, not the author. Your other science fiction quote (added to sense 1) is from another short story that first appeared in 1984 in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction magazine (now Asimov's Science Fiction), "Blued Moon" by Connie Willis (Asimov didn't write the story, he just had his name in the title of the magazine). As for sense 2, the context of "1957" quote shows that the word wasn't limited to responding, and in fact seems to be based on the idea of "speaking with", which isn't the same sense of with, at all. Chuck Entz (talk) 01:50, 10 October 2017 (UTC)
 * @Chuck Entz, Okay, Thanks for that ! I'll get these updated Leasnam (talk) 02:04, 10 October 2017 (UTC)
 * , is it appropriate to call this an inherited word, or a (re)borrowing from Middle English ? I can't really find older uses of the word, and I don't have access to OED. If the word indeed shows a gap in use, I think it's good to show it with a label of nonstandard. Otherwise, if it continued throughout (doubtful), then rare might be better (?) . In any event, I feel weird saying it's inherited from ME...Leasnam (talk) 02:21, 10 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Resolved, RFC template no longer present. &mdash; surjection &lang;??&rang; 21:20, 8 February 2021 (UTC)