User talk:Shieldfire

You asked about merging Snow cream with Snow (dessert). Normally you would be required to tag the two articles with merge suggestion tags and open a space for discussion on one of the talk pages (see Talk:Cholent and Talk:Chamin for a recent example). In your case, both articles are very short and the situation is so obvious that I don't think you need to open a discussion and wait for an opinion poll. So you should (a) decide which of the two names you want to use as the main article; (b) edit the text under that name so that it faithfully reflects and combines both merge components; (c) delete (or hide) the existing content of the other article in the pair being merged (without touching its name!) and insert a redirect instruction from it to the full article. In this way you do not delete anything, you do not rename anything, and no problems arise. Good luck. --Zlerman (talk) 17:11, 31 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Incidentally, you should not really put any pieces of articles on your User page: do that in your sandbox User:Shieldfire/Sandbox or in separate sections on your talk page. --Zlerman (talk) 17:11, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Fruit fool
Hi, please check the etymology of fool that you give in Fruit fool: the French word foule translates as "crowd", and although one of its meanings is "crush", it is "crush" in the sense of "crowd", not in the sense of "pressed" or "pureed". This is the impression I get from looking at half a dozen online French-English dictionaries, so perhaps this "foule" business is just folk etymology and should be dropped from your article (or at least qualified). --Zlerman (talk) 15:40, 21 September 2008 (UTC)
 * That was taken from the original page, and comments. However - I've removed it for now. The original comment was "The word “fool” is believed to be related to the French word foule meaning “crushed or pressed” taken from Hibler, Janie. The Berry Bible, Harper Collins Publishers, 2000, page 306.
 * Apparently it seems "fouler" is used regarding wine making. So could be figuratively applicable for this case as well.

I am getting back to this, because I am always troubled by folk etymologies. Here is what I have just received from a professional terminologist in response to my question about a possible connection between fool and fouler:
 * No substance at all, as far as I can see. Fouler comes from the latin fulare (s: Robert), while fool (= stupid) comes from the latin follis (which gave "fol" in old French and "fou" in modern French) and fool (= fruit fool), if it comes from French, is also derived from follis (s: Concise OED). If you have access to the full OED, check it as there may be additional information there.
 * Considering the indications of "fouler" being a wine making term when crushing the grapes and saving the fruit juice and also other etymological weirdnesses when borrowing words from other languages I'll let it stand for the time being (that "fool" as in modern day fool (it would be obvious that the word fool is not intended in the modern sence?) originates from "follis" doesn't necessarily mean that the word "foole" in relation to the "Gooseberry foole" does). I have rephrashed the entry in the article.

So more research is apparently needed. I will try to follow up on the full OED, but do you actually have access to Janie Hibler's book? Could you somehow send me the relevant text on p. 306 or give me a working link to that? Regards, --Zlerman (talk) 01:02, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Haven't got it at the moment. I'll give it a look shortly. Here is a reference in the meanwhile http://www.homestead-farm.net/RecipeBerries.html - somewhat down that page.

Here is the etymology of "fool" (fruit dessert) from Oxford English Dictionary (2nd ed., 1989): [prob. a use of prec., suggested by the synonym trifle, mentioned in quot. 1598. (So Skeat in Phil. Soc. Trans. 1885-7). Mahn's derivation from F. fouler to crush, is not only baseless, but inconsistent with the early use of the word.]

For your purposes, the rejection of "Mahn's derivation from F. fouler" is what counts. As to the first part of the etymology, it seems to suggest that "fool (fruit dessert)" (which is n2 in the dictionary) derives from "preceding", which is "fool" in the usual sense of "silly" (n1 in the dictionary). I imagine you will find the right formula to reflect this in the article. --Zlerman (talk) 09:58, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I've changed the wording of that passage. Apparently though the opinion that fool relates to "fouler" seems widespread so I'm keeping it in there. I still think it seems weird relating to "fool" as in "silly", but I've used the OED extensively elsewhere.

Redirections
Hi there, I have created redirect pages from Jumbles, Jumbolds and Jambles to the Jumbals article you created. --Deadly&forall;ssassin 07:25, 19 October 2008 (UTC)