Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2021 March 17

= March 17 =

Sic question
If the same mispelling is in two sentences in a six-sentence quote, should I [sic] the first one only or both? Clarityfiend (talk) 08:15, 17 March 2021 (UTC)
 * I've never come across this problem in any text or mentioned in any style guide, but I would have thought just the first instance would be sufficient to alert the reader to the second misspelling.--Shantavira|feed me 08:31, 17 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Then you're in for an "icky" treat at Family of Dwight D. Eisenhower. Clarityfiend (talk) 09:16, 17 March 2021 (UTC)
 * It's not a common nickname, and I've seen it both ways in Newspapers.com, so to say "'Ikky' (also spelled 'Icky')" could be sufficient. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 11:23, 17 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Can it even be said to have a "correct" spelling? Did Eisenhower routinely write it down while the child was alive? Did Ike and Mamie have the same spelling in mind when they spoke it? Maybe Ike thought it was Ikky, but Mamie always thought of it as Icky. --Khajidha (talk) 12:05, 17 March 2021 (UTC)
 * If they wrote autobiographies, their spellings could be compared. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 12:55, 17 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Myself, I like Ike(y). Clarityfiend (talk) 20:36, 17 March 2021 (UTC)
 * One should be enough. Marking both might look WP:POINTy, like when some editors put cn after every sentence in a section. --T*U (talk) 09:34, 17 March 2021 (UTC)
 * I would consider whether you actually need to quote that much of a source. Paraphrasing it would remove the need for any such tagging. If you really do need to quote that much, I would consider an introductory note to alert the reader that the misspelling was in the original. Possibly along with a hidden note not to correct it. --Khajidha (talk) 11:10, 17 March 2021 (UTC)
 * I might write it something like this: "Mr Mustermann replied sic: 'Youf gotta noo idear whatcher talkin about.'" Temerarius (talk) 23:25, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

Major words
Hello to all!

I am Italian and I have a question about English language. For the major words is used greater form. For example: fast - fastest, old - oldest, great - greatest, hard - hardest. And for beautiful which word will be used?

Thanks in advance!!! --2001:B07:6442:8903:C8F4:FEB0:4287:1B45 (talk) 17:10, 17 March 2021 (UTC)
 * "Beautiful" doesn't have an "_____est" form, the proper usage is "most beautiful". This also applies to the "_______er" form (faster, older, greater, harder, etc), for beautiful the correct form is "more beautiful). --Khajidha (talk) 17:14, 17 March 2021 (UTC)


 * The technical name for such forms is "superlative" (on Wikipedia this redirects to Comparison (grammar)). AnonMoos (talk) 17:46, 17 March 2021 (UTC)


 * Generally adjectives of three or more syllables form their superlative by adding "most" rather than the -est suffix. I believe the only exceptions are compounds beginning with un- such as unhappy and unlucky. CodeTalker (talk) 00:47, 18 March 2021 (UTC)
 * When Alice cried out "curiouser and curiouser", surprised by her opening out like a telescope, "for the moment she quite forgot how to speak good English". --Lambiam 08:58, 18 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Whether or not "beautifulest" is a valid word seems to be disputed. Wiktionary includes it with no comment on validity, WordSense says it's "dated", Study.com says it's "not a word" (but I'm not signed up to the website so I can't see their detailed answer), and Oxford Dictionary doesn't have an entry for it.  Iapetus (talk) 09:59, 18 March 2021 (UTC)