Talk:astern of

RFD discussion: February 2019–April 2020

The following discussion has been moved from Wiktionary:Requests for deletion (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.

---

astern of

It is not necessary to have a page for astern of defined as a preposition as astern is an adjective and of is the preposition, and each of those are separately defined. In the usage example on the page ("a wake astern of her") the usage of astern is akin to east in "a mile east of here", and we wouldn't define east of as a preposition with its own page. Mike (talk) 11:34, 9 February 2019 (UTC)

Doesn’t the argument equally apply to ahead of? Also, don’t you mean adverb? In these uses, astern and east are not serving as attributes, so a more likely part-of-speech assignment is that they are adverbs.  --Lambiam 07:15, 10 February 2019 (UTC)

Usage such as following shows that astern fits in the adjective word class:

• 1872, Hunt's Yachting Magazine‎^[1], volume 21, page 288:

  Every yachtsman knows that if the ballast of a ship be too afore or too astern.

• 1883, Lieutenant J. Menteith Brebner, RETURN WRECKS AND CASUALTIES IN INDIAN WATERS‎^[2], page 140:

  The chief engineer's evidence of the S.S. Lennox was the best given; but, as will be seen, he asserted that from the orders he received the Lennox's course was more astern than ahead.

• 1883, Alexander George Findlay, A Sailing Directory for the Ethiopic Or South Atlantic Ocean‎^[3]:

  but when near Cape Palmas the wind will perhaps be more astern

• 1966, Peter Padfield, The Titanic and the Californian‎^[4], page 233:

  The steamer was more than ahead of us, just on our quarter as we say, and the light was more astern.

It appears as a predicate (unlike an adverb) and is gradable (unlike a noun). Other usage shows that in can appear attributively (unlike an adverb) in phrases like astern power/thrust. DCDuring (talk) 15:34, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

I do not disagree, but observe that all of that equally applies to ahead, which is now classified solely as an adverb:

• 1909, The American Review of Reviews‎^[5], volume 39, page 633:

  Whether in the case of industries other than railroads, the contraction is more ahead than behind, is the question now.

• 1920, J. W. M. Sothern, The Marine Steam Turbine‎^[6], D. Van Nostrand, page 496:

  In this arrangement only two ahead turbines and two astern turbines are fitted, or four in all, the astern turbines being contained in the same casings as the ahead.

And this use of astern looks more adverbial to me:

• 1911, James Connolly, The Magic of the Sea‎^[7], B. Herder, page 511:

  Then on looking astern we saw that the severed parts of the Speedwell were filling with water, the midship ends settling and the men scrambling up on the bow and stern that were cocking up in the air.

 --Lambiam 10:21, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

When pondering questions of definition and usage, I like to go back to see what others have done previously. My modern (1980s) A.H. collegiate, the 1918 Webster's Collegiate, and the 1910 Webster's New Intl. only refer to ahead as an adverb. The 1914 Century Dictionary defines it as "prep. phr. as adv. or adj." while the 1919 Concise Oxford says it is an adverb and predicate adjective.

In your quote from 1920, ahead is being used attributively, and perhaps in being a nautical sense of the word it is a reflection of how it was historically used. (Compare "two ahead turbines and two astern turbines" vs. "two forward turbines and two backward turbines".) I assume that Wiktionary would include any such historical usage.

Returning to "astern of", I can see how it would be comparable to "ahead of". -Mike (talk) 09:09, 13 February 2019 (UTC)

Kept - no consensus to delete. - TheDaveRoss 13:42, 17 April 2020 (UTC)