Talk:populous

RFD discussion: November 2013–March 2014

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populous

Supposedly a misspelling of "populace". Far too rare to be included, AFAICT. See e.g. [1]. - -sche (discuss) 20:57, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

It's more common with a modifier: "general populous" (in Books and in Groups) seems to be the most common, but other adjectives work, as well. I'm sure some of these are cases of neighboring clauses grafted together by removal of punctuation and other syntactic cues, but I haven't seen any of that yet after looking at a few dozen hits. Chuck Entz (talk) 21:56, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

We already have it as a homophone. Would someone who needed this be any more likely to look to find the noun section than to look to the homophones section? It is almost always the case that homophones are an opportunity for misspelling.

And then there is the question of what common is supposed to mean in this context. DCDuring TALK 22:35, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

• I just happened to notice that one of dictionary.com's example sentences for "populous"[2] uses it instead of "populace", if anyone finds that relevant. —Mr. Granger (talk • contribs) 08:17, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

They almost certainly use some automatic system to accumulate example usage from some readily available corpus, as does Wordnik. How big is their sample of usage? What is the selection/review process? We have various bits of evidence that this is a "mispelling" that has some level of usage, both because we find examples and because almost all homophones are sometimes misspelled.

What we still need is evidence that this is common. We could relatively conveniently sample from COCA and BNC to come up with frequency statistics, but who will do the work without some consensus on what "common" means? I don't really see much respect for statistical evidence here as voters seem to prefer the opportunity to exercise their franchise to select "interesting" misspellings on some unknown basis. I'm not going to fight that. DCDuring TALK 13:17, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

Since this word already has an entry, why not simply include a usage note in it stating "Not to be confused with populace." and, if necessary, include the same usage note, mutatis mutandis, in the entry for populace? — I.S.M.E.T.A. 14:08, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

Or better yet, "Frequently confused with populace." --WikiTiki89 14:17, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

All homophones have a similar potential for confusion.

We have no basis for saying frequently. DCDuring TALK 14:32, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

Fine with me; I just think a new POS section and definition line for the misspelling would be a bit OTT. The argument here would then reduce to one merely about which adverb ought to be used, which should be less contentious. — I.S.M.E.T.A. 14:33, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

This 2009 edit removed a similar, but prescriptive usage note and added the Noun misspelling PoS and the homophones line with no facts. We have advanced a little on the fact side, thanks to Chuck, but not on the determination of the meaning of "common" for our purposes. DCDuring TALK 18:11, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

Shall we simply reverse that edit, softening the tone a bit? — I.S.M.E.T.A. 18:22, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

I've deleted the noun sense, as it is not a 'common' misspelling. I think the "homophone" line is sufficient, given that any homophonous words can be confused (and we wouldn't want to add usage notes for all homophonous words, would we? it'd be redundant to the "homophone" bit, lol). - -sche (discuss) 21:28, 28 February 2014 (UTC)