Talk:Fossil word

message: Tenterhooks.  "The word tenter is still used today to refer to production line machinery employed to stretch polyester films and similar fabrics."    — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mcgyver5 (talk • contribs) 01:45, 5 April 2022 (UTC)
thread_title: Tenter

message: Would "many-splendored" (or even just "splendored") go on this list? It also seems to be only ever used within, or in reference to the phrase "love is a many-splendored thing".  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:F40:962:2925:9D55:CF47:3A17:1B07 (talk) 04:10, 27 June 2023 (UTC)
thread_title: Many-splendored

message: I oppose the merge with the "Fossil word" article, since cran morphs are prosodically and morphologically bound forms, which do not occur as separate words -- which is not the case with fossil words... AnonMoos 19:46, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Merge with [[Cranberry morpheme]]

message: Would "by dint of" go in this list? How about "on bended knee"? (Plse add if yes.)71.236.26.74 (talk) 08:30, 16 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: dint, bended

message: I don't think that should go here AFAIK it's from Asia (Webster says Malaysia).  Otherwise we'd have to put in all foreign words that are only used in certain expressions.  (e.g. Gesundheit for sneezing).  The definition says it's supposed to be an "old" word, not a foreign one. 71.236.26.74 (talk) 21:23, 16 July 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Well virtually all English words were foreign once. Amok is in many English dictionaries and has been used in the English language for hundreds of years, so it both old and English. (The Malay word is spelled amoq.)--Shantavira|feed me 14:47, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Amok?

message: Either the absolutist language needs to be toned down or some of these words should be removed.  Ulterior, ilk, eke, ken… these words ARE used outside of these phrases, just not frequently.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.166.249.154 (talk) 14:24, 29 June 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Wikipedia is the encyclopedia that anyone can edit, even you.--Shantavira|feed me 14:49, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Absolutist Language 

message: I removed a lot of things. They fell into two varieties:
The first: words which are not strictly limited to their phrase. These are ilk, fell, and craw. I'd say ilk is only mildly uncommon and the phrase given is not more usual than other constructions ("his ilk", etc.), while craw is readily understood for birds. Fell as in "terrible, fearsome" gets currency in modern writing trying to sound old; even if that's the only way it's current, the meaning is understood outside the phrase, though it remains rare.
I also removed umbrage. "Taking umbrage" may be an idiomatic expression, but we also "take offence" and you can't use another verb with that; that doesn't make "offence" a fossil word, it's just particular about the verb used with it. 
Tell me if you think otherwise. --10:30, 5 November 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removals 

message: Is not a fossil.
 >>> fettle |ˈfetl|
noun
condition: the aircraft remains in fine fettle .
verb [ with obj. ]
trim or clean the rough edges of (a metal casting or a piece of pottery) before firing.
• N. Englishmake or repair (something): the familiar sounds of bikes being prepped and fettled.<<<
It also means to remove by filing  any sharp edges of metal on a tool held in the hand,to reduce user fatigue,  i.e. a block plane. Gimelgort 16:50, 11 June 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fettle 

message: I feel this stub is not encyclopedic, it's just a definition and many examples. Wouldn't wiktionary cover this adequately? Is there any way to really add to this article? Maybe linguistic research into how fossil words are born, how words lose meaning, and so on?--User:Dwarf Kirlston - talk 17:46, 3 December 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Not encyclopedic, just a definition & examples 

message: I'm not a linguist by training, and I'm not quite sure of the exact scope of the term "fossil word." Does it include words for which the fossilizing context is not an idiom or set phrase that can be used "directly" in a new sentence (in the sense that it parses as a general idiom or phrase, rather than as a quotation; there may be a better term to express this idea), but one or more specific passages of text or speech that are quoted sufficiently often to make the words in them "in current use," but only within the context of such quotations? I'm thinking here about the continued frequent recitation and quotation of Psalm 23 and the Lord's Prayer in translations (in particular, the King James Version) that use "thou," "thy," and "thine" (and the second person singular conjugations of a couple individual verbs, if one counts those as separate words). Anyone who _is_ a linguist (professionally or otherwise) know the answer to this?
If so, then I think those should be added; if not, then there's probably a "see also" that's appropriate. 35.11.156.189 (talk) 23:30, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: Not sure about Psalm 23, since the "thou" forms don't appear until the fourth verse.  The Lord's Prayer only has "thy" (the verb form "art", without an explicit subject in its own clause, and without an "-st" ending, would not be understood as a 2nd person singular form by those without specialized knowledge of linguistics and/or Early Modern English).  I do think there can be words fossilized in a specific quotation (for example, "score" in "Four score and seven" in the Gettysburg Address), but not so sure about the Bible -- in many cases, people either have read a lot of the KJV, in which case they wouldn't be confused by 2nd. singular forms, or they don't care about the KJV, in which case they might not even understand the 2nd. singular forms. AnonMoos (talk) 04:26, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: P.S. The plural form "scores" with an indefinite meaning is still used in current English, but the singular form "score" with the exact meaning twenty is now a fossil... AnonMoos (talk) 15:54, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Second-person singular pronouns (and possibly other, analogous terms)