Talk:xiao

RFV discussion: September–November 2017

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xiao

Rfv-sense: "signifying a little one, junior, small guy, younger person. Usually is attached to a name" DTLHS (talk) 22:16, 13 September 2017 (UTC)

I've usually seen it as Xiao. Here are some quotes:

• Xiao Liu, as we called her, xiao being an affectionate diminutive meaning "small"
• A youth referred to as Xiao Wang (Little Wang) and a neighbor girl had been in love for more than a year and were preparing to formally register their intended marriage when the girl's parents suddenly changed their minds about Xiao Wang (I can't see the preview for this one, so I don't know if it's italicized.)
• I agreed, and every Sunday thereafter the boy, Xiao Liu, and I would play Chinese chess and badminton, and talk. (Xiao, literally "little," is sometimes used with the surname as an informal and friendly means of referring to a young person.)

I haven't looked very hard, but I'm certain more citations of the capitalized form exist. It's a little tricky to filter out uses of the surname Xiao. I haven't seen any unambiguous non-italicized uses of the lowercase form. —Granger (talk · contribs) 01:11, 14 September 2017 (UTC)

None of those could really be called "adjectival" uses either. DTLHS (talk) 01:20, 14 September 2017 (UTC)

No, I think I would call it a proper noun in English. —Granger (talk · contribs) 01:21, 14 September 2017 (UTC)

But is it English? In the quotes above, it seems to be part of a discussion of the usage of Chinese 小 (xiǎo). Note, for example 'Xiao, literally "little,"', which seems an awful lot like someone translating a Mandarin term into English. I'm not so sure that misspelling the pinyin by omitting the tone is enough to make it English. Chuck Entz (talk) 02:21, 14 September 2017 (UTC)

It's true that the quotes above all explicitly discuss the origin of the word. I'm certain uses exist that do not discuss the origin of the word, and just use it as part of a name without remarking on it, but it's difficult to distinguish those uses from uses of the surname Xiao. (The only way I can think of that I would be able to distinguish those kinds of uses from the surname would be to find a book that introduces a character as, for instance, "Wang Ting", and then has other characters refer to them informally as "Xiao Wang". I haven't been able to find uses like that. Alternatively if someone has a good knowledge of Chinese surnames and given names they might possibly be able to find a use of Xiao X where X is unambiguously a surname and not a given name, but my knowledge of Chinese names is not that good.) But as long as the word is used in running text without italics, I don't think a parenthetical explanation should disqualify the citation (compare the "jib" example at WT:CFI). —Granger (talk · contribs) 14:50, 29 October 2017 (UTC)

RFV-failed None of the quotes treats the word as English. Kiwima (talk) 22:01, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

What makes you say that? "the boy, Xiao Liu, and I would play Chinese chess" certainly looks like English to me. —Granger (talk · contribs) 01:17, 20 November 2017 (UTC)

That is not the sense being questioned. Add it as a proper noun if you want. DTLHS (talk) 01:18, 20 November 2017 (UTC)

Okay, done. —Granger (talk · contribs) 01:23, 20 November 2017 (UTC)