Talk:headmistressship

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hostessship, headmistressship, goddessship

The usage note at hostessship says, "The term appears unhyphenated in the unabridged second edition of Webster's Dictionary, yet is spelled hostess-ship in subsequent editions. This trend is also prevalent in headmistressship and goddessship, which, respectively, may be hyphenated."

• English does not allow the same letter three times consecutively, and usually hyphenates to avoid this (compare cross-stitch), but I acknowledge that these closed-up forms might have currency.
• American English more readily closes up words that are hyphenated in British English. If these terms are to be included, they need to be marked as "US" because they would be considered incorrect in British English.
• The fact that Webster's amended "hostessship" to "hostess-ship" in later editions suggests that they recognised they had made an error.

By the way, "respectively" is redundant here as "may be hyphenated" applies to both words. — Paul G 08:41, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

I am unaware of the rule. There is no authority to promulgate a binding rule. Wiktionary does not normally give much weight to rules, except with respect to context tags. I doubt if it is "error" correction as much as changes in prevailing usage or in information about such usage that the other dictionaries follow. DCDuring TALK 10:48, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Why are these items at RfV??? hostessship, because used in w:A Winter's Tale, would meet the well-known work rule. The others are cited. No argument challenging the citations has been made. DCDuring TALK 10:54, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Well, the First Folio spells it (deprecated template usage) Hoſteſſeſhip; are you sure that the specific edition quoted in our entry constitutes a well-known work? (Also, I'm not sure the well-known work rule applies to misspellings, as this may be; but then, RFV isn't great at identifying misspellings.) —Ruakh_TALK 00:44, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

I am aware of the question of editions in Shakespeare, which is why I got the First Folio reference into the notes. I have no idea what ought to constitute a well-known edition of a well-known work. That it was Samuel Johnson's I thought would help the claim. This is the first time that I've seen this issue come up. DCDuring TALK 01:00, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

The fact remains that whatever edition it is, people will read it and can therefore decide to look up the word. At the very least, we should have some sort of "obsolete form of" entry. By the way, because this section isn't precisely titled "hostessship", the RFV link wasn't working, so I thought it was un-listed and removed the tag. Language Lover 01:23, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

I've restored it, thanks for mentioning. —Ruakh_TALK 01:39, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Ah, I didn't notice it was you that added that. I don't really know enough about the history of editions of Shakespeare. —Ruakh_TALK 01:39, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

I think the First Folio is, more or less, the first "authorized" edition of the plays. Some of the older "Quarto" editions were "pirated". I think the quality of some is considered poor, but Shakespeare was dead by the time the First Folio was printed. In any event this was apparently the first publication of "The Winter's Tale". Presumably the later Folios (let alone the later editions) reflect both true corrections and adjustments to then-contemporary printing and spelling conventions. Because the issue here really is just spelling, we might have to wade into this in more detail than normal. Is the a true Shakespeare scholar in the house? DCDuring TALK 00:37, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Agreed with DCDuring, RFV is the wrong place for these. Let's compare freeest, which only passed as a misspelling, but that's perhaps because of the recency of the term. However, also compare various other attested terms that violate this so-called "rule" which no one has provided citations for: skulllike, bulllike, gillless, crosssection, etc (please don't RFD any of those until this discussion is over). Bear in mind the sheer number of words that break rules (slough can be pronounced three different ways, efficiencies breaks the "I before E except after C" rule twice, and barbaric pronounces the "bar" combination two different ways). To exclude clearly attested words because they break rules is completely absurd. Teh Rote 00:54, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

The rule “‘i’ before ‘e’ except after ‘c’” is only for an [iː] sound; an exception is made for <ies>-terminal plurals of <y>-terminal nouns. Also, you must agree that skull-like, bull-like, gill-less, and cross-section are a lot more common that their unhyphenated forms. In language, I’d wager that any rule of broad application will have its exceptions, especially in one so widely spoken as English. Nevertheless, this does not bar such terms from being included (as long as they are attestable); however, it is only wise that it be noted when they “buck a trend” when some may term such bucking as “violating a rule”. † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 01:41, 28 August 2008 (UTC)