Talk:aillse
Latest comment: 6 years ago by Mahagaja in topic RFV discussion: November 2016–January 2018
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Tagged but not listed; creator no longer active at Wiktionary. Not in the main Irish-English dictionary ({{R:ga:Ó Dónaill}}) but maybe somewhere else. There's an ailse, but it means "cancer" (same as the Scottish Gaelic aillse), not "fairy" or "heedlessness". —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 10:54, 15 November 2016 (UTC)
- I dunno about "heedlessness", but Armstrong's 1825 (Scottish) Gaelic Dictionary has
- Aillse, s.f. A fairy; a ghost; a diminutive creature; rarely a cancer; delay. Ir. aillse. In some parts of the Highlands this word is pronounced taillse.
- Take that with as many grains of salt as you might need. Especially as aillsiu goes back to Wb, and no sign of a "fairy" sense --Catsidhe (verba, facta) 11:29, 15 November 2016 (UTC)
- Ah, "heedlessness" is probably from O'Brien's 1768 Focalóir Gaoidhilge-Sax-bhéarla:
- Aillis, a Canker, an Eating or spreading sore, hence braon aillse a drop observed to fall upon the tombs of certain Tyrants so Called from it's Cankerous corroding what it falls upon.
- Aillse of or belonging to a Cancer vid. aillis
- Aillse delay, neglect, heedlessness.
- Again, I have no idea how he found the second sense. --Catsidhe (verba, facta) 11:45, 15 November 2016 (UTC)
- I've refactored the entry a bit, it could probably stand someone else having a look. I've put the two mystery definitions in the same etymology block for lack of anything better to do with them. I mean, they're attested, but they come out of nowhere, seem to vanish afterwards, and have no immediately obvious etymologies. I have also added
{{R:ga:O'Brien}}and{{R:gd:Armstrong}}. --Catsidhe (verba, facta) 01:17, 16 November 2016 (UTC)
- Could the mystery definitions be fictitious entries? -80.133.123.15 04:16, 20 May 2017 (UTC)
- That's a good point. google books:"aillse" fairy turns up several books with ideas for placenames or words in other languages that might be related, but also turns up this article in Scottish Gaelic Studies 3-4 (1929), which says on page 54: "Aillse, "a fairy," appears first in Lhuyd (p. 426), who marks it as a Scottish word. The next lexicographer to include it was Shaw, who explains it as "a fairy, a diminutive creature." O'Reilly, as usual, took over the word from Shaw. Coneys copied O'Reilly, at the same time providing the word with a plural, aillseacha, and quoting the phrase, Ni lugha orm aillseacha ciaróg 'na thu. He thus mixed up two distinct words, the Scottish aillse, and the Irish aillseach, 'a chafer, ear-wig'." @Mahagaja, Catsidhe, might the definitions be "ghost entries" or even errors in the dictionaries above? (If they are errors, it might be good to mention and debunk them in a usage note.) - -sche (discuss) 21:05, 27 January 2018 (UTC)
- Looking through the Historical Corpus of Irish, 1600–1926, the only work I can find using this word in connection with folklore is Sean-Oideasaí Leighis, which contains a section "Ar an Aillse", which uses the word four times not counting the title of the section. My reading comprehension of 18th-century Irish isn't good enough for me to know what it's talking about, but it could be some kind of fairy, at least. The only other two instances in the corpus are one that seems to be a variant spelling of ailse (“cancer”) and one that's a variant form of (or error for) aillseach (“chafer, earwig”). So maybe it's not a ghost entry, but we'd have to find someone who can understand the Sean-Oideasaí Leighis section to be sure. At the very least it appears to be
{{lb|ga|obsolete}}as well as{{lb|ga|rare}}even when it was in use. —Mahāgaja (formerly Angr) · talk 21:22, 27 January 2018 (UTC)- 17 Ar an Aillse.
- Súgh míghde agus plúr mine cruinneachta shuatha trí chéille, a
- chuir na cheirín ris an aillse agus fóirionn. Nó púdar do dhéanamh
- do choideógaibh agus d'ailím trí chéile agus fóirionn aillse. Nó
- únsa do Yellow Bassilicon agus únsa do Tincture of Myrrh agus
- luadh pinne do parcipitate powder, iad do choimiosg trí chéile
- agus plásdra do dhéanamh díobh, a ccuir ris an ccneadh aillse agus
- fóirionn. Nó an luibh darb ainm colaimbín do bhriseadh na haonar
- agus fóirionn an aillse.
- There are too many words that I can't make out for a proper translation ('fóirionn'? I think this is from v. 'fóir' "help, relieve"), but it seems to be instructions for making a poultice for treatment of an aillse... which makes more sense in the "cancer" sense. Especially since the title of the book is Old medical recipes. --Catsidhe (verba, facta) 22:21, 27 January 2018 (UTC)
- In that case, I'm calling hoax on the whole "fairy; heedlessness" meaning. It seems to be dictionary-only and to have spread by one lexicographer copying another. Let's break that cycle and not profilerate this imaginary word any further. —Mahāgaja (formerly Angr) · talk 22:31, 27 January 2018 (UTC)
- Looking through the Historical Corpus of Irish, 1600–1926, the only work I can find using this word in connection with folklore is Sean-Oideasaí Leighis, which contains a section "Ar an Aillse", which uses the word four times not counting the title of the section. My reading comprehension of 18th-century Irish isn't good enough for me to know what it's talking about, but it could be some kind of fairy, at least. The only other two instances in the corpus are one that seems to be a variant spelling of ailse (“cancer”) and one that's a variant form of (or error for) aillseach (“chafer, earwig”). So maybe it's not a ghost entry, but we'd have to find someone who can understand the Sean-Oideasaí Leighis section to be sure. At the very least it appears to be
- That's a good point. google books:"aillse" fairy turns up several books with ideas for placenames or words in other languages that might be related, but also turns up this article in Scottish Gaelic Studies 3-4 (1929), which says on page 54: "Aillse, "a fairy," appears first in Lhuyd (p. 426), who marks it as a Scottish word. The next lexicographer to include it was Shaw, who explains it as "a fairy, a diminutive creature." O'Reilly, as usual, took over the word from Shaw. Coneys copied O'Reilly, at the same time providing the word with a plural, aillseacha, and quoting the phrase, Ni lugha orm aillseacha ciaróg 'na thu. He thus mixed up two distinct words, the Scottish aillse, and the Irish aillseach, 'a chafer, ear-wig'." @Mahagaja, Catsidhe, might the definitions be "ghost entries" or even errors in the dictionaries above? (If they are errors, it might be good to mention and debunk them in a usage note.) - -sche (discuss) 21:05, 27 January 2018 (UTC)
- Could the mystery definitions be fictitious entries? -80.133.123.15 04:16, 20 May 2017 (UTC)