Talk:Cordwainer

Comment

"Cordwainer" article does not word-wrap for me; I have a horizontal scroll-bar. All other known articles wrap for me (I am testing this as I write -- "Cordwainer" is unique in this respect) making it very difficult to read. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.185.175.230 (talk) 04:01, 24 July 2007‎

Comment

This information in this article is not of low importance it has historical value, it may not merit standing alone and maybe should be merged with or redirected to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoemaker. It is also not an obsolete job. There are plenty of shoemakers still left in the world, the term may be stuffy but it is still in use. I arrived at this page from here after I searched the term from this page http://www.keikari.com/english/rozsnyai-shoes/ where they refer to their staff as cordwainers.

68.59.121.226 (talk) 16:40, 7 April 2014 (UTC)driveby

File:Capri - 7224.jpg to appear as POTD soon

Hello! This is a note to let the editors of this article know that File:Capri - 7224.jpg will be appearing as picture of the day on October 27, 2015. You can view and edit the POTD blurb at Template:POTD/2015-10-27. If this article needs any attention or maintenance, it would be preferable if that could be done before its appearance on the Main Page. Thanks! — Chris Woodrich (talk) 23:50, 9 October 2015 (UTC)

Picture of the day

A cordwainer making shoes in Capri, Italy. Cordwainers are shoemakers who make shoes from new leather. They are distinct from cobblers, who repair shoes or make shoes out of old leather.Photograph: Jorge Royan

Cobblers and cordwainers

The article starts off in the lead sentence by saying that "cordwainer" is an English term. But a few paragraphs down, it says without qualification that cobblers and cordwainers are not interchangeable terms, as cobblers only repair shoes.

Well, let's look up these words in a few dictionaries. (I show only the relevant senses here.)

• Merriam-Webster's Dictionary defines "cobbler" as a person who makes or repairs shoes; it defines "cordwainer" simply as shoemaker, which in turn is defined as someone who makes or repairs shoes.
• The American Heritage Dictionary defines "cobbler" as one who mends or makes boots and shoes and has no entry for "cordwainer".
• Webster's New World Dictionary defines "cobbler" as a person whose work is mending shoes or making shoes to order and also has no entry for "cordwainer".

So maybe there was a distinction between the terms in the days of the historic London guilds, but according to these sources there clearly isn't one in modern American usage: "cobbler" includes both meanings and "cordwainer" is a synonym (and obscure enough that some dictionaries omit it).

Modern British usage, I don't know about. But that passage claiming a distinction needs to be fixed by stating the correct geographical or historical scope, whatever it is. And then the same change is needed in the shoemaker article.

--174.88.134.156 (talk) 00:32, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

Apparently this cited article explains the difference. RegistryKey^(RegEdit) 13:26, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

I edited this article to address this problem. Will edit shoemaker next. Quercus solaris (talk) 21:09, 31 October 2015 (UTC)

Not to be confused with a cordwangler, I presume? Smlark (talk) 17:13, 21 December 2018 (UTC)