Talk:everytime

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everytime

As far as I am aware, this is not a word, but simply a mistake in English. For sure, it's not hard to find Google hits, but they are all just errors, in my opinion. I suggest we delete it to avoid misleading people. (If kept then at minimum it should have a "not a proper word" warning, however that is done.) 86.181.174.81 11:16, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

That would be the {{proscribed}} or {{nonstandard}} gloss. But is it closer to standard in North American English? Equinox ◑ 11:21, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Well, it's not in any dictionary at http://www.onelook.com/?w=everytime (apart from junk), and that search encompasses several decent US dictionaries. Also, every page that I've looked at thrown up by searches like http://www.google.co.uk/search?&q=everytime+every+time+grammar agrees that it's wrong, and I doubt they are all BrE-only. 86.181.174.81 11:36, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Looking at Google Books, it's pretty clearly a word. I'd used proscribed instead of nonstandard; it's been used in a number of well-edited magazines and books.--Prosfilaes (talk) 12:54, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Keep and update the definition, per other people's comments. Mglovesfun (talk) 17:01, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

OK, thanks, I did that. 86.179.113.102 17:08, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

From where does it follow that this should be marked "proscribed"? Are there any sources that consider this term proscribed, or is it just proscribed by an anon editor? Some searches: google:"everytime", google:"every time", google books:"everytime", google books:"every time". There are 321,000 hits in Google books. --Dan Polansky (talk) 17:24, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

(i) It is not in any dictionary that I can find. (ii) the Google search that I linked to above throws up a number of pages/discussions in which the overwhelming view (as far as I have researched it) is that there is no such word as "everytime": it is simply a mistake. 86.179.113.152 20:09, 12 April 2012 (UTC) By the way, FYI, that number that Google reports on its first result page (for example, you probably saw "About 321,000 results") is well known to be a meaningless and usually vastly inflated random number. (Not that I'm denying that there are some Book Search hits, of course, but just because something is in a book does not mean that it is correct English. Just check the Book Search results for "alot of", for example.)

We are not tagging words that are not in dictionaries with "proscribed". We are actually attesting uses of words ourselves; see WT:ATTEST. We have Appendix:English dictionary-only terms for terms that are found only in dictionaries. In Wiktionary, actual use reigns supreme, unlike other dictionaries.

Google numbers are nowhere meaningless; they are fairly good heuristic indicators of word frequency. Even more reliable could be Google Ngram Viewer, designed for word frequency research: GNV everytime, everytime, compared to a pair of a spelling and a misspelling GNV conceive,concieve, and GNV alot of, a lot of.

Your claim that this compound word is not part of correct English has so far been unsubstantiated, as far as I am concerned. Feel free to provide a list of individual references to the claim that "everytime" is incorrect. --Dan Polansky (talk) 20:51, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

It's interesting. Linguists treat it as a word, and ponder its semi-pronoun nature, and use it themselves. But Google keeps asking if I'm sure I didn't mean "every time", and books of pedantry, when they mention it, critique it. The Little Gold Grammar Book: Mastering the Rules That Unlock the Power of Writing (2010) by Brandon Royal is terribly clear: "It is always spelled as two separate words. Spelling it as one word is nonstandard and incorrect."page 83 The more moderated Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage (1995) says it's slowly growing more common, but two words is still more widely preferred, and as of 1980 no dictionary had everytime.page 417 (I do think the dictionaries matter, as they are decent indicators of what spellings are generally approved and what are proscribed.) The process of editing (1991) gives us this phrase to remember: every time and any time are two words all the time.page 136. William Faulkner And Joan Williams: The Romance of Two Writers, in quoting a letter hyphenate it at the end of a line and add [sic] after it; if we assume it was originally one word, that's a sign of proscription there. Garner's Modern American Usage (2009) by Bryan A. Garner says "Two words. But many writers try to make the phrase one word" page 328. I see a lot of actual use of "everytime" (though I see a lot of OCR problems turning "every time" into "everytime"), but proscriptive works seem to be against it. If I had to sum it up in one word, proscribed would be a good word.--Prosfilaes (talk) 10:38, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

@Dan Polansky. I do not agree that Wiktionary should blindly accept every "word" that can be attested. Some editorial control and common sense must be applied. People come to dictionaries wanting and expecting to learn the correct use of words, as that is currently understood. We should not let them down by pretending that "words" such as "alot" and "everytime" are correct just because some book editors did not do their job properly. 81.159.108.111 20:54, 13 April 2012 (UTC) (BTW, I also stand by my claim that the headline hit count on the first page of the Google results is a meaningless number. I have seen it incorrect by a factor of 500, compared to the actual number of retrievable results. I trust the Google "Ngram" numbers, however, up to OCR errors)

@81 --

You seem to be forgetting two things.

1. "Every word in every language" -- one of the stated goals of the Wiktionary project is to be descriptive, not proscriptive: the goal is to describe languages as they are, not to proscribe what languages should be.
2. Usability -- this means providing alternate and inflected forms of words, such as mice or 歩いて (aruite) or nidaalnish, or even everytime. What if someone ran across the term everytime and came to Wiktionary wanting to know more about the term? In its descriptiveness, Wiktionary provides the service of (eventually) allowing a user to type in almost any commonly seen term and find a page explaining what this means, or at least linking through to other pages that explain the meaning.

The everytime page clearly describes that this is a form of every time, thereby 1) being descriptive, and 2) providing useful information to someone who might have wondered about the status and meaning of this term. There's nothing about the everytime entry that looks prima facie like deletion material. You're welcome to demand at least three citations from durably archived source material per Wiktionary:Criteria for inclusion (and the 315K hits at google book:"everytime" tells me that this would not be difficult), but demanding the deletion of the term suggests a misunderstanding of the goals of the Wiktionary project.

(That said, I do not oppose the {{proscribed}} label, though perhaps a usage note might also be called for.) -- Kind regards, Eiríkr Útlendi │ Tala við mig 21:18, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Arguing that Wiktionary shouldn't include all the attestable words is simply a non-starter, especially in this forum. Wiktionary follows in the tradition of the Webster's Unabridged, 3rd edition, and most modern lexicography. Descriptivism is a design feature that pervades Wiktionary. And frankly I think most people should be happier with a descriptivist approach; is it really better to shrug on "everytime" and "ain't" and act like we've never heard of them, or to explain to our readers that they are words people use and they're generally not approved of. (Which I see we don't really do on ain't, but that should be remediable.--Prosfilaes (talk) 21:58, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, I may not have explained myself clearly. When I said that Wiktionary should not "accept" every attested word, I meant in the sense of accepting that they are correct. I did not mean that common so-called "proscribed" words should not be included in the dictionary. In fact, as this thread has developed, it has become clearer to me that they should be included, specifically so that people can learn that they are viewed as incorrect. (Therefore, I retract my original suggestion that "everytime" should be deleted, but maintain my suggestion that it should somehow be labelled as "not a proper word".) 81.159.108.111 22:21, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

But if it is not a proper word, how do we know that? Clearly, some people use it, so they believe it is a proper word. —CodeCat 12:59, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

• Well, and let's be clear here -- what is meant by proper? As 81 uses it, I think they mean "considered to be grammatically correct English, possibly of an academically appropriate register" (i.e., no English teacher will squawk at you about it). As some of us here interpret it, "proper" means something more like "meets WT:CFI and merits inclusion here in WT". Those two criteria are orthogonal, and this leaves much room for confusion. -- Eiríkr Útlendi │ Tala við mig 16:15, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

I did not mean to suggest that the actual words "not a proper word" should be used in any definition. That was just an ad hoc phrase standing in place of some more polished way of expressing it. However, it is, as I understand, a well established feature of Wiktionary that some words (see e.g. alot, irregardless) have labels ("nonstandard", "proscribed", possibly others) and/or usage notes that alert users to the fact that educated speakers -- the sort who might be reading your job application letter -- consider certain words and usages incorrect. This provides a valuable service to dictionary users. "everytime" is in the same class. Every piece of guidance that I have been able to find says that "everytime" is incorrect (or uses some euphemistic PC-speak that effectively amounts to the same thing). 86.160.221.83 19:45, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

FWIW, I agree (w/86.160.221.83). —Ruakh_TALK 18:45, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

Kept. bd2412 T 19:51, 9 May 2012 (UTC)