Talk:Sixties
Add topic
The following discussion has been moved from Wiktionary:Requests for verification (permalink).
This discussion is no longer live and is left here as an archive. Please do not modify this conversation, but feel free to discuss its conclusions.
CambrigeGEL, page 1737, reads
It was about the failure of Sixties’ radicalism; the decline of the dollar; the hegemony of television culture: it is all these, and more.
I am befuddled by the capitalisation and the missing definite article --Backinstadiums (talk) 12:45, 18 July 2020 (UTC)
- It's attributive use of the plural noun Sixties. The decades are normally (but not always) capitalised. SemperBlotto (talk) 12:54, 18 July 2020 (UTC)
Three citations added. Very many more available. Could do with better formatting. SemperBlotto (talk) 13:12, 18 July 2020 (UTC)
As to the "missing" definite article, it would be odd for it to be there. If one omits Sixties' from the sentence you should see that no determiner is required. Why should adding a adjectival modifier result in the need for one?These questions remind of the ones I no longer answer on Quora. DCDuring (talk) 13:53, 18 July 2020 (UTC)
The apostrophe in the quotation shouldn't be there, in my opinion. Both "The Sixties' radicalism" and "Sixties radicalism" sound correct. Vox Sciurorum (talk) 14:28, 18 July 2020 (UTC)
- Yes, I was going to comment on the bad apostrophe. You say e.g. "a Beatles album", not "a Beatles' album". Equinox ◑ 16:19, 18 July 2020 (UTC)
Cited in two senses: literally 1960-1969, and the overlapping period of American history conventionally bounded by the Kennedy assassination and Watergate. Vox Sciurorum (talk) 18:01, 18 July 2020 (UTC)
- One could say "radicalism of the Sixties", which transforms to "the Sixties' radicalism". So "the Sixties' radicalism" and "Sixties radicalism" seem correct. CGEL's "Sixties' radicalism" seems wrong, and does not appear on the Errata et Corrigenda (last edited 6 January, 2016). I think BackinStadiums should send a correction to gpullum@ed.ac.uk and rdnhuddleston@gmail.com. Apart from the ethics of stealing, I already appear on the list of correctors and doubtless wouldn't get more credit for a second one. Other names on the list of correctors with names I recognize are Geoffrey Leech, Paul Postal, Lloyd Humberstone, and Jonathan Swinton. I wish I had sent in my correction as "anonymous Wiktionarian", just to limit the fanmail. DCDuring (talk) 21:02, 18 July 2020 (UTC)
- Yeah, "Sixties' radicalism" (with the apostrophe but no definite article) would be grammatical in the peculiar grammar of headlinese, like "Mayor Pete's comments about Sixties' radicalism cause controversy", but not elsewhere AFAICT. (But why was this listed at RFV?) - -sche (discuss) 18:27, 19 July 2020 (UTC)
- RFV closed. Out of scope of this page. DTLHS (talk) 22:16, 20 July 2020 (UTC)