Talk:perspicuity

-ity

Isn't -ity part of its etymology synchronically? --Backinstadiums (talk) 09:13, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

True that surface analysis sees the suffix -ity in both perspicuity and acuity even though the words weren't formed, historically speaking, by the joining of combining forms. This would be true of most of the many cognate words that English treats with -ity, German treats with -ität, French treats with -ité, Spanish treats with -idad, Italian treats with -ità, and so on, usually coming from the etymons that Latin treats with -itas. I'll add the surface analysis to the entry, which will automatically include the entry in Category:English words suffixed with -ity. Quercus solaris (talk) 02:55, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

On whether even to _try_ to capture pre–orthographic-standardization spelling variations comprehensively in "Alternative forms" sections

As I write this comment, this entry tries to do it, with a list of 5 alternative forms all duly labeled obsolete and dated to the 15th and 16th centuries. This is fine, as far as it goes, but how far it could go would be dishearteningly far if one pursued it systematically. It's trivial to say that in English before the 19th century everyone spelled everything however the fuck they wanted to, which it to say that everyone (who could write) spelled everything (that they might write) however the fuck they wanted to (on any given day). What would be the polar opposite of trivial would be systematically recording all such forms. Which is not to say that doing so has no value, especially for machines, and especially if done by machines. But I don't think that we meatbags would even want the result of that effort to be displayed in the presentation option (of dictionary entries) that we would usually choose to view. We would want it contained in a div container that was collapsed by default, at the least. Anyway I realize that I am just spouting thoughts about something that no one is going to care much about or follow up on anytime this decade. Which is why I'll now desist. Quercus solaris (talk) 03:10, 30 April 2021 (UTC)