Talk:sere

Etymology of English sere (2)

Discussion moved from User talk:Sgconlaw.

Hello, on my revision that you've undone: I haven't found the word in the 1933 edition of OED so I don't know what exactly it says, but my edit was motivated by what I hope you will agree are two unquestionable facts:

• that there is no such verb as serēre~sereō in Latin, there is only serere~serō;
• that serere and serō is the same word in two different forms (INF and 1SG PRES IND), therefore saying that serō comes from serere, let alone citing two separate meanings for forms of the same word, is misleading and lacks sense.

If the information in OED seems to disagree with either of these two facts, then I suggest we drop the OED reference altogether (possibly substituting any other dictionary mentioning the word) and either leave the Latin etymology to the Latin entry for serō, or copy it from there. Brutal Russian (talk) 17:34, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

@Brutal Russian: Thanks. I'm not in a position to assess your explanation, so I've posted at "Wiktionary:Etymology scriptorium" asking for comment. — SGconlaw (talk) 18:14, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

Translation of Middle English quotation

Hi, @Hazarasp, did I translate the Middle English quotation at "sere" (adverb) correctly? I wasn't sure of the meaning of mydis. (The same quotation appears at þame and þem.) — SGconlaw (talk) 14:40, 9 August 2019 (UTC)

Looks fine to me. However, IMHO, the entry needs to be moved to the Middle English header (the OED doesn't attest the adverb sense past 1440; the adjective senses can stay in ModE though), which I'll do shortly.

@Hazarasp: sure, that may make sense; go ahead. The OED did say it might remain in modern English in dialectical form, but that entry hasn't been updated since the early 20th century and no citations are present. — SGconlaw (talk) 15:06, 9 August 2019 (UTC)

The OED entry covers both the adjective and adverb; unless I'm misreading it, it only provides attestations of the adjective past ME. --Hazarasp (parlement · werkis) 15:13, 9 August 2019 (UTC)

Yes, you’re right. There’s a label applying to the whole entry (adjective and adverb) suggesting it is “obsolete except dialectal?” (complete with question mark), but no modern English citations are provided for the adverb sense. — SGconlaw (talk) 15:19, 9 August 2019 (UTC)