Talk:Were

Untitled

oppose merger. This term has a specific meaning used in literature for a type of creature and in horror and fantasy genres. ChildofMidnight (talk) 21:53, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Word has Indoeuropean origin. Sanscrit vira. Latin vir. But it has survived only in modern Baltic languages: Lithuanian vyras, Latvian vīrs. --Profesoriux (talk) 19:17, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

Other version (from warg - "someone outside the ‘world’, a socially deviant outsider; more specifically, a criminal and an outcast"), see Blécourt W. de. The Differentiated Werewolf: An Introduction to Cluster Methodology // Werewolf Histories / Ed. by W. de Blécourt. — Palgrave Macmillan, 2015. — P. 2. — 280 p. — (Palgrave Historical Studies in Witchcraft and Magic). — ISBN 1137526343, ISBN 9781137526342 --Бериллий (talk) 15:18, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

Existence of "wer(e)man"

Are there any sources for the existence of "wer(e)man"? I've been unable to find any, and from the looks of it the word never existed at all in Old English, at least not with this sense. Lingvulo (talk) 01:41, 16 February 2020 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, there is no legitimate source that uses "werman". It appears to be based on the term "wifmann" applied to males. Going by other sources, Anglo-Saxons either used just "mann" to refer to male humans or used "wæpnedmann" to specify a male human. I've already removed it, and it appears this page is in need of some cleanup. Auzewasright (talk) 15:01, 29 July 2020 (UTC)

Remarks on the Links

I have a few remarks to this article, but English is not my first language and I'm not well versed in the topic of shapeshifters. While I wouldn't want to change/delete those links on my own, somebody with a deeper understanding of this material might want to look into it:

• Weregild seems unrelated to shapeshifters, unless the user who added it was referring to the Beowulf poem. In which case it should rather link to Beowulf.
• Also: The Mannaz article seems to be missing what made this page's authors originally refer to that page. Maybe it was removed or maybe they forgot to add it themselves.

Thank you for your time and/or assistance. --80.141.74.84 (talk) 06:37, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

Requested move 1 January 2024

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 - Little support for the first move. Regarding the second, the discussion seemed pretty evenly divided about what the primary topic was. Overall no consensus to move. (non-admin closure) FOARP (talk) 15:25, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

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• Were → Were (word)
• Were (disambiguation) → Were

– (other dab modifier suggestions welcome) Sure, this is part of the etymology of werewolf, but I can't imagine this is the primary topic readers expect to see at this title. Hameltion (talk | contribs) 23:48, 1 January 2024 (UTC) — Relisting. Adumbrativus (talk) 06:03, 10 January 2024 (UTC) — Relisting. BilledMammal (talk) 19:06, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose It appears to be the primary topic, if you "can't imagine" it then maybe take a look at the pageviews. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 12:17, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

  Should've phrased more specifically: Because almost all results for were in Google Books, Scholar, etc. are not for this topic but for the verb, readers may be surprised to find this at this title. Hameltion (talk | contribs) 18:03, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

• In fact, since "were" the verb is also a (word), I think I should modify this request to move to Were and wer in line with the lede, unless someone has a better modifier. Hameltion (talk | contribs) 18:03, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

  That makes sense, so we still keep the primary redirect for now, but gain the ability to measure better what the people looking up "were" were aiming for. --Joy (talk) 12:48, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose. Primary topic. They're all words! -- Necrothesp (talk) 15:58, 8 January 2024 (UTC)
• Support 2nd per WP:ASTONISH. The 1st proposed move has an issue of incomplete disambiguation, but I would support Were (noun) or similar. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 22:40, 8 January 2024 (UTC)
• Support per nomination and King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠. The eight-sentence stub delineating "Were and wer are archaic terms for adult male humans and were often used for alliteration with wife as "were and wife" in Germanic-speaking cultures" does not appear to be primary over the nine other entries listed upon the Were (disambiguation) page. As for the parenthetical qualifier, "were" appears to function as a noun, adjective or verb. Thus, the proposed Were (word) would encompass all uses or, if preferred by consensus, Were (part of speech). —Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 14:57, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

  The problem with Were (word) is not that it is a bad title in isolation. The problem is that if it is not the primary topic for "Were", mainly due to conflict with the verb form of "to be", then it also cannot be the primary topic of "Were (word)". -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 17:46, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

Fair enough. Since the eight-sentence stub under main header "Were" appears to delineate almost exclusively the "archaic terms for adult male humans", rather than "were" as a verb, I would support Were → Were (archaic term) or, in dispensing with the parenthetical qualifier, Were → Were and wer, per Hameltion. —Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 19:19, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

I'm fine with either of those. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 19:25, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

@ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ: @Necrothesp: any objections to using "were and wer" as the title while keeping the primary redirect? --Joy (talk) 14:38, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

I don't think anyone would support that. Those of us supporters do not think that this is the primary topic of Were. And if I were to ignore the primary topic debate, I would say that Were is a better title than Were and wer; the sole reason to disambiguate is because it is not the primary topic. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 17:40, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

@King of Hearts I was trying to build some form of consensus here because as it stands we're just not going to do anything :) --Joy (talk) 22:37, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

But I think you're missing the point of the debate, which is over whether the archaic term is the primary topic of Were. I think all of us agree that Were is a better title than Were and wer in a vacuum (ASTONISH is not an objection over the choice of title; it is very much a PTOPIC objection, since if no other topics called "Were" existed, we would not be ASTONISHed). But if it is not the primary topic, then it is simply not allowed to be at Were. So continuing to treat it as the primary topic while moving it to Were and wer accomplishes nothing. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 22:58, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

Looking back at this, I'm not really sure where I pulled "were and wer" out of ... they're the same word. I think I was thinking of wer and wif. My new suggestion is Wer (Old English), per some sources. Sorry to make a confusing discussion. Hameltion (talk | contribs) 01:53, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

As I said above, it does actually accomplish something - it allows us to use the existing usage statistics tools to measure whether readers are astonished or not when arriving there. --Joy (talk) 12:06, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

• Support 2nd, which by default requires a move of the first. My vote for the disambiguator for the first would be Were (archaic term), but I would be fine with Hameltion's suggested Wer (Old English). BD2412 T 00:49, 13 January 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose all . This seems to be the primary topic, the RM is a solution looking for a problem and as noted, calling it "were (word)" would be more confusing than anything, since that sounds like the past tense of to be.  — Amakuru (talk) 15:21, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

  Exactly: "Were" is the past tense of "to be". So how can the archaic word be the primary topic? -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 05:04, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.