Talk:confuzzle

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Magic zero b.g.c. hits. --Connel MacKenzie 07:36, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Cited. Tons of Usenet quotations to choose from. DAVilla 21:11, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Rfvpassed. Harmless. Andrew massyn 16:32, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

RFD

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confuzzle

Having failed RFV, this word may be safely deleted. -- Beobach972 00:12, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

I have no idea what our criteria for inclusion are anymore, but this is definitely real and in use. --Ptcamn 00:38, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

As confuzzled above. --Enginear 15:50, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Cited, including quotes for "confuzzled". AAVE? The 1996 quotation by Reynolds is from Chesterfield. Does anyone think it likely that an American is hired in the U.K. to work for a website design company? Hmm... DAVilla 17:41, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Not all of your citations are clearly using the verb confuzzle; the first ('96), second (also '96), and fifth ('07) all strike me as uses of the adjective confuzzled. (It's hard to be sure either way, but that's really how they seem to me.) —Ruakh_TALK 18:16, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

What we in English call the past participle of transitive verbs also act linguistically as adjectives. They, gerunds, and the like are listed as verbs and the details are in the grammar. A lot of people wonder if we shouldn't be using e.g. ===Verb form=== instead. On the other hand, if we insist on language-specific definitions, each language needs its own set of standard headers, e.g. ===Coverb=== and ===Stative verb=== in Mandarin rather than ===Preposition=== or ===Adjective===. It seems however that all languages have been hammered into the mold of English. So to address your point, yes, but things are just messed up that way, confuzzled if you will, both on Wiktionary and with language more broadly. DAVilla 19:34, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Sorry for saying so, but you seem to be a bit confused. While participle→participial-adjective is a productive process in English, English does retain a bit of a distinction between participles and participial adjectives. (See http://www.bartleby.com/64/C001/047.html for some discussion on this.) Further, there are some adjectives ending in -ed that don't even come from participles (consider e.g. red-haired), so the existence of an adjective in -ed is not necessarily proof of an underlying verb form, e.g., your cites for confuzzled don't prove the existence of a verb to confuzzle. (In this case, it seems quite likely to me that confuzzled comes directly from confused, with to confuzzle being a backformation by analogy with to confuse. I note that your first confuzzled cite predates your first confuzzle cite by about a year and a half, which is plenty of time for slang to evolve.) —Ruakh_TALK 01:20, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Really? So we've been doing it wrong, then? I'd be more than happy to cite them independently. Adding several thousand more definitions for adjectives though isn't going to be so easy. DAVilla 06:17, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

In general, process has been followed. For confuzzle, no, those citations are invalid and belong at confuzzled. <Insert standard rant about illiteracy and lack of editorial review on usenet.> I am tickled to note that both word forms seem to have only two citations, even including the usenet nonsense. --Connel MacKenzie 03:46, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Nope, plenty more where that came from. I disagree with having to cite regular forms independently, as that pushes the descriptivist envelope a bit too far, but it's not a problem for this word. Usenet, yes, but all people who use full names. Sorry, but some words are just informal. That doesn't mean they don't exist. DAVilla 15:04, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Don't worry, I'm not suggesting that we cite all regular forms independently; but in some cases, I think it's unclear whether a given seemingly regularly inflected form is indeed that. To take my red-haired example further: imagine that we find two Usenet cites for "he red-haired her" (clear uses of a verb red-hair). Will we then count a cite for "she's a red-haired Irish girl" as the third cite for the verb? I'd say not. —Ruakh_TALK 01:51, 22 April 2007 (UTC)