Talk:Hypocorism

message: Re the point, "a reduction (in English) of a longer word...." If anyone can give me a brief idea on the origins/difference between the y spelling and the ie spelling I would greatly appreciate it. My name is Lachlan; my mum spells it Lachie, I spell it Lachy. My feeling is y is the more Celtic in origin whereas ie is a French adaptation. (58.110.122.143 (talk) 01:47, 18 June 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: It seems whollie arbitrarie to me. —Tamfang (talk) 07:49, 17 July 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: History of spellings

message: Some discussion on the history and psychology behind hypocoristics would be good, and probably protect it from WP:WINAD. I don't think Diminutive covers (or can cover) hypocoristics, or their history, well enough.
Anybody know much about them before I cobble together something?  Until then, should this be marked as a stub?  --Mark 16:34, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: History and psychology

message: Given the many, and special, meanings of "diaphragm" in English I'm not keen on correcting this, but isn't the pitch of speech sounds dependent on the larynx? The way it it is said now, I think of big and small croaking frogs ... klaus --91.32.9.240 17:05, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Diaphragm? 

message: Strictly speaking, -tan is a diminutive of -chan which is a diminutive of -san which is a diminutive of -sama, which is an honorific. It is thus not part of the name itself.
I'm not sure about -pi.
While I'm commenting, the article should probably mention the almost universal dropping of "-ko" and "-mi" from girl's names. For example, a girl named Haruko might be called Hatchan by her closest friend(s), and Haru-chan by the rest of the class. Only strangers, distant relatives, and adults who were telling her off would bother with the full "Haruko-chan" form. --61.214.155.14 (talk) 04:34, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Japanese -chan and -tan 

message: I deleted Che for Ernesto. Ernesto Guevara was called "Che" for his use of the interjection "che"; it doesn't mean that other Ernestos would have that nickname. 190.136.59.66 (talk) 21:22, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ernesto not Che 

message: Sarah → Sally 
where in the word is Sally a short form of Sarah? It's not even shorter, for one thing  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.9.162.175 (talk) 04:46, 26 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: So it says at Sarah (given name) and Sally, though I'm not sure where citations for such a claim could be gotten. Mary → Molly → Polly is similar. Since Hypocorism apparently means "baby-talk", and since the "Derivation" section mentions reduplication, possibly "shorter form" should be removed from the definition. "Easier form"? "Relaxed form"? 213.122.60.95 (talk) 17:29, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  What? 

message: Is it worth pointing out that the brits seem to use more of this sort of thing in their slang? Compared to other english speakers they seem to have a lot of baby talk.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.11.36.165 (talk) 18:51, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: No original research. --Mr. Guye (talk) 20:26, 15 March 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  British

message: Hypocorism is the encyclopedic subject. The term 'hypocoristic' is an adjective. The fact that, as in all languages, some few people misunderstand, are ignorant, or were taught incorrectly by ignorant predecessors does not 'validate' the error of usage. This article has only one reference listed, from OED, and that reference is from OED's entry on HYPOCORISM, not 'hypocoristic'. Several posters on the talk page have already made this point, apparently to deaf ears (so-to-speak) of other editors. I am initiating a page rename request: From 'hypocoristic' to 'hypocorism'. Those who wish to persist in their error have no need to worry. Entering 'hypocoristic' in the search box will still get you here because a redirect will exist. Joe Hepperle (talk) 20:53, 28 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: My apologies for the late response, but: Right is not wrong by any authority of Joe Hepperle; the word hypocoristic is either an adjective or a noun. See the OED, s.v. hypocoristic ("b. n. A pet name."). Or R. L. Trask, A Dictionary of Phonetics and Phonology (Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 1996), s.v. hypocorism ("hypocorism n. (also hypocoristic or, more rarely, hypocorisma) A diminutive, especially one used as an endearment or pet name...."). Or Laurie Bauer, A Glossary of Morphology (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2004), s.v. hypocoristic ("A hypocoristic is a pet-name...."). In short, Mcswell was correct. -- Hoary (talk) 02:19, 8 June 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bad Usage 

message: Is there a place for historical examples, perhaps in a different article? For example, the daughter of Abigail Adams, was also named Abigail, but in the family she was called "Nabby" to distinguish her from her mother. --DThomsen8 (talk) 14:02, 23 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Historical examples? 

message: This article, from my quick scanning of it, seems to focus on hypocorisms of given names, when the summary mentions words as well. Examples of the latter would be helpful. (Sorry that I'm posting this without carefully reading the article, but I'm at my limit tonight.)
I ran across the hypocorism article while adding in a referenced definition for Gogo (South African for Granny) at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oprah_Winfrey_Leadership_Academy_for_Girls#Visiting_the_elderly
So, there's one hypocorism, complete with reference, that does not substitute for a given name. I think. I'm very tired (lopsided grin). I'm documenting this request and info tidbit here for whoever can take up the research and revision, and to those people, I give my sleepy thanks. Thank-yawwwwn-ks! --Geekdiva (talk) 09:40, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Not only names, but words as well? Also, "Gogo" in S. Africa 

message: Most of these examples just look like nicknames to me. --Mr. Guye (talk) 20:24, 15 March 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  You sure these are all hypocorisms?  

message: There are some very typical French pet names which characterise a common way they do it that are not listed here.
Micheline → Mimi
Philipe → Fifi
My mother is French and I have spent time with my relatives in Normandy, so this is first hand information. There are many others like this.
Geoffpointer (talk) 00:14, 14 May 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  French examples lacking 

message: The listing in the English section is very inconsistent. This article is referenced in MOS:NICKNAME, as a basis to decide for example whether to put a nickname in quote marks in the lead sentence of an article. It should be reasonably accurate. For example, "John → Jack" was listed as a "shortening" - in which case it should not be used in the lead sentence - and also under "A short form that differs significantly from the name", in which case it should. See Talk:John F. Kennedy#Semi-protected edit request for the uncertainty that produced. I've cleaned up the John/Jack entries, but a lot more work needs to be done. There are a number of other names that inconsistently appear both in "shortening" or "diminutive" as well as in "short form that differs significantly", e.g. Dorothy → Dot → Dottie; James → Jamie, Jim →Jimmy; etc., or are in an inappropriate category such as Adelaide → Heidi being in "shortening" when it ought to be in "short form that differs significantly". There are also some rather dubious entries like "Anne → Annie; Nan → Nancy". Furthermore, although it doesn't affect MOS:NICKNAME decisions as much, most "diminutive" names are duplicated in the "shortening" section, though some like Rosemary → Rose → Rosie are only listed in "diminutive" and not "shortening". It would be great if people could help clean it up! --IamNotU (talk) 17:54, 28 July 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Inconsistency, cleanup help needed. 

message: Suggestion (not yet a proposal): create "List of Hypocorisms" and move all the pointless examples there. IAmNitpicking (talk) 21:56, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Split article 

message: I have parked the sections that were discussed above by ,  and  at Talk:Hypocorism/Unsourced for the time being. For one, those sections are entirely unsourced and borderline original research. While many of the examples for languages I am familiar with are intuitively correct, this is not sufficient as threshold for inclusion. At the same time, the examples also mislead towards equating a hypocorism with a dimunitive of a name. From what I can see in dictionary references, any "pet name" is a hypocorism, e.g. if Paul is called "Buster" or my partner calls me "darling", that's all covered under this term. Essentially the list could be endless.
I suggest that examples and explanations are moved back step by step as proper references are found in the context of "hypocorism". pseudonym Jake Brockman talk 00:50, 24 July 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Unsourced / [[WP:OR|original research]] moved 

message: :The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion. 
The result of the move request was: Not Moved. Interested editors should engage in merge discussion on talk page if relevant.  Mike Cline (talk) 13:18, 28 February 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: Hypocorism →  – Per WP:COMMONNAME.  "Pet name" is vastly more common than hypocorism across all domains.
The Google Ngram Viewer shows it as 100 times as common in books.
Google Scholar shows it in 14,100 scholarly articles compared to 702 for hypocorism.
Google Search shows it in 4 million web pages, compared with 47 thousand for hypocorism. Dan Bloch (talk) 01:58, 19 February 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: I'll be honest, I had never heard of this term either before today. Rreagan007 (talk) 03:26, 19 February 2022 (UTC)

text:  You're misrepresenting the Oxford dictionary.  First, you're leaving out the relevant part; the definition in its entirety says, "A familiar or diminutive form of a name; a pet name."  Second, to be clear, this is Lexico.  The OED, which is a different dictionary, just says, "A pet-name."  Also note that "pet name" doesn't mean the name of a pet. Having said all that, I don't object to redirecting hypocorism/pet name to nickname if there's general agreement that they mean the same thing, but that can be addressed separately. Dan Bloch (talk) 07:24, 19 February 2022 (UTC)

text: There's a relevant footnote I came across in a 2001 paper, "Hypocoristics of place-names in Australian English" where the author talks about her reason for using the term "hypocoristic" over other alternatives:  Though I don't know to what degree this taxonomy reflects scholarly consensus. Colin M (talk) 20:15, 19 February 2022 (UTC)

text:  Would that be any different from removing the redirect "pet name">"hypocorism" and creating a separate Pet name article? Because I would support that if the two are kept separate (at least in some way) - I may simply not be too familiar with how (re)moving, redirects and renamings work on Wikipedia. Replayful (talk) 17:28, 22 February 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry, missed this. This doesn't seem advisable, since it would result in two identical articles, at least to start with and possibly forever.  Splitting first is also more error-prone, since all the current links to Hypocorism assume that it means the same thing as pet name. Dan Bloch (talk) 22:23, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

text:  I'd love to see a taxonomy that showed that, but the reliable sources I've seen all say that hypocorism and pet name are synonyms. Dan Bloch (talk) 06:15, 22 February 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Requested move 19 February 2022