Talk:many a

on many occasion

is on many occasion a variant of on many an occasion? --Backinstadiums (talk) 00:47, 9 November 2019 (UTC)

No. Ungrammatical. Equinox ◑ 01:04, 9 November 2019 (UTC)

etymology

How'd many a come to be? --Backinstadiums (talk) 16:53, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

many a one : many people

For Collins many a one "many people" is an idiom. --Backinstadiums (talk) 18:37, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

I agree. — TAKASUGI Shinji (talk) 01:40, 13 November 2020 (UTC)

RFC discussion: January 2017–June 2023

The following discussion has been moved from Wiktionary:Requests for cleanup (permalink).

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many a

English. The anon who created it, who was probably Wonderfool, who had never read a poem in his/her life, tagged it as poetic. Totally wrong, right? And I'd suggest merging the entry, along with many an, into many. --Quadcont (talk) 11:44, 28 January 2017 (UTC)

“many a”, in OneLook Dictionary Search. shows that dictionaries include the term, usually as a redirect to many. I suppose what distinguishes many + [Noun] (plural) from many a + [Noun] (singular) is the emphasis on the individuality of the [Noun]. DCDuring TALK 15:46, 28 January 2017 (UTC)

• Not totally wrong. It definitely has a whiff of song/poetry to it – "I've been a wild rover for many a year…", "Many a time and oft on the Rialto…" – these are expressions familiar from songs and literature, not current in contemporary speech except when trying to generate various kinds of archaic/jocular effects. Ƿidsiþ 14:13, 13 November 2017 (UTC)

I did some work on this but didn't remove the label. I will let others decide that. -Mike (talk) 07:39, 15 March 2019 (UTC)

• The poetic label has been removed. I am against merging because many a seems idomatic. - excarnateSojourner (talk | contrib) 04:56, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

• Looks cleaned up now Fools can be king (talk) 17:11, 30 June 2023 (UTC)