Talk:Caladenia callitrophila

Etymology of callitrophila

There is some dispute about the etymology of callitrophila. It is not for a Wikipedia editor to decide which is the "proper" word and to delete reliable sources. ("Reliable sources include university-level textbooks, books published by respected publishing houses, magazines, journals, mainstream newspapers.") Gderrin (talk) 21:34, 25 September 2019 (UTC) The Primer by Short and George is published by Cambridge University Press. (ISBN: 9781107693753)

• Quoting verbatim from Short (page 227): -philus (adj. A, in Gk comp.) loving
• Quoting verbatim from Stearn (page 466): -philus: in Gk. comp., -loving; dendrophilus, tree-loving, epiphytic; xerophilus, loving dry places. Gderrin (talk) 10:51, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

Short and George use here the abbreviation "Gk" for "Greek" (p. 114). It is unclear whether they refer with Greek, to "real (ancient) Greek words or forms", or to something that is "of Greek origin". Kuriakon for example is a Greek word, while church is "of Greek origin" (and ultimately derived from the Greek word kuriakon).

In the limited number of instances, one can find the word "Greek" in Short and George, it can be coupled to the word "origin":

p.5: "Some nouns of Greek origin, ending in -e,"

p. 113: "Entries are included for many prefixes and suffixes. We indicate whether these are of Greek or Latin origin"

p. xi: "The letter ‘k’ was rarely used and ‘y’ appeared in few words, mainly of Greek origin."

They do not unequivocally state that the words that are labelled with "Gk" are actual Greek words, prefixes, word-forming elements.

On p. 6 we can read: "The Greek -anthos is declined in the same way as its more common Latin ending -anthus" This is a rare example from wich we can infer that Greek o-stem words can be Latinized by replacing the os-ending with a Latin us-ending. Unfortunately, Short and George do not exploit this example, for making clear what the morphological differences are between a original Greek word/word-forming element/prefix and its Latinized counterpart. In case they would have explained that more thoroughly, the reader could have identified more easily, that o-stem words/word-forming elements on -us are the Latinized versions of their Greek counterparts, and not the original Greek versions. Now, readers are misidentifying those Latinized Greek wors/word-forming elements/prefixes as real authentic ancient Greek, while etymologically, that is of course non-sense.

People with some knowledge of Latin and Greek will automatically identify these words/word-forming elements/prefixes as Latinized version, while people without any knowledge of Latin and Greek would make the same mistake as you have made continuously. Short and George should have realized that their audience might be classically illiterate and they should have made clear that their is a clear difference between Greek and Latinized Greek. But, you have also misinterpreted in an other lemma, the meaning of "compound", while Short and George explain compound on p. 27. When you are extracting etymological information and you do not have a working knowledge, concerning linguistics, some Latin and some Greek, such misinterpretations are bound to happen.Wimpus (talk) 16:11, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

Ancient Greek ἄνθος is actually an s-stem noun, and (adjectival) compounds typically end on -ανθής, due to ablaut. Wimpus (talk) 17:17, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

If the objection is with the word "ancient", then take the word "ancient" out. Repeatedly deleting reliable sources is disruptive editing. Gderrin (talk) 21:17, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

The key question is: "Is -philus ancient Greek or Latinized Greek?". Your interpretation seemed to be "ancient Greek", but Short and George do not make unequivocally clear that it is ancient Greek (nor do they indicate clearly that it is Latinized Greek, while that is actually the only possibility). Wimpus (talk) 21:26, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

Then undo the revert of the article, replace the references of Short, Brown and Stearn and change the wording to reflect what's in those references. Gderrin (talk) 21:34, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

In case you are making an edit to Wikipedia, you have the responsibility to make a reliable edit, in which the added text does represent the sources correctly. In case your edits are merely misinterpretations of sources, there is no objection to delete the incorrect information. You can not demonstrate here that your interpretation was correct. The absence of a real linguistic discussion (from your side), clearly demonstrates that you are actually oblivious to the etymological content you have added. One should expect from editors that they clearly know what they are doing. Wimpus (talk) 21:52, 26 September 2019 (UTC)