Talk:tau

Missing toadfish sense

Webster 1913 gives this sense: "the common American toadfish, so called from a marking resembling the Greek letter tau". I've been unable to find evidence in Google Books, though, other than the taxonomic name Opsanus tau. Equinox ◑ 04:23, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

German Low German etymology - Middle Low German tau?

In the

Neues vaterländisches Archiv oder Beiträge zur allseitigen Kenntniß des Königreichs Hannover wie es war und ist. Jahrgang 1824 (Lüneburg, 1824, p. 294ff., Google )

there is a part entitled

"XVII. Zur Sittengeschichte des sechszehnten Jahrhunderts. Letzte Vermahnung der Frau von A..... zu B........ an ihre hinterlassenen beiden Töchter, wohnhaft auf dem Johannis-Kirchhofe daselbst. Anno 1572. (Eingesandt.)"

containing the preposition tau. The

Zeitung für den Deutschen Adel. 1843. Vierter Jahrgang (Altenburg, Google (part 1) & Google (part 2))

has it too, but slightly changed (like with ek instead of eck).
Is it from the 16th century and does thus tau exist in MLG, or is the spelling modernised and from a later time?
Or is there another source in MLG having tau? -80.133.97.7 22:53, 3 February 2018 (UTC)

For the record, the lemma on Wiktionary would be normalised to tô anyway, but the 16th century is a transitional period where local dialects become very reflected in spelling where before they were hidden by a more standardised orthography. You also see that by the text using hinner instead of hinder, aße for alse, Wören for Wörden, gaiht for geit etc. etc. pp. I could see this being an actual text from 1572 and there is no indication of the contrary. I'd also count it as Middle Low German since it fits the pure native style which defines these texts. So in my book, it's a reference for 'tau' in MLG. Korn [kʰũːɘ̃n] (talk) 09:30, 5 February 2018 (UTC)

RFV discussion: July 2023

This entry has survived Wiktionary's verification process (permalink).

Please do not re-nominate for verification without comprehensive reasons for doing so.

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tau

Rfv-sense. Sense 1 claims tau is The letter Τ/τ in the … Hebrew, and ancient Semitic alphabets, which seems like nonsense since (a) that is a Greek letter, (b) it’s clearly referring to taw or tav, but makes no mention of it, and (c) it’s not clear what the “ancient Semitic alphabet” it’s referring to is even supposed to be (since there are several).

This was copied from Wikipedia back in the very early days, and it’s such a poor definition that I think it should be speedied. Even if it’s an alternative spelling of taw, the definition should reflect that instead of wrongly implying that Hebrew uses a Greek letter. Tagging @J3133 who wanted this to go through RFV. Theknightwho (talk) 13:27, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

I noted in my edit summary, “This is included in other dictionaries, e.g., Collins, sense 3, “tav”.” Here is a link to the Collins entry. The Middle English Dictionary states, “(a) Tau, the name of the letter T in the Hebrew and Greek alphabets; […]”, and includes both -u and -v/-w forms. J3133 (talk) 13:32, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

How could this gloss be verified? There is no "letter Τ/τ in the Hebrew and Semitic alphabets", so it makes no sense, as TKW says. Would be more sensible to add a separate sense for tav and then put that through RFV if desired. —Al-Muqanna المقنع (talk) 13:35, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

I support adding it as a separate sense, following Collins, but I reverted Theknightwho’s edit because it removed any mention of the Hebrew/Semitic alphabet from the entry (the edit summary was “Remove reference to Ancient Semitic alphabet: tau is not taw.”). J3133 (talk) 13:38, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

There is indeed a letter in various Semitic writing systems that was borrowed into Ancient Greek as the letter Tau. The most likely donor would be Phoenician 𐤕 (t). This letter can be spelled in English as "tav", or "taw"- but also as "tau" (note the Unicode description of Phoenician 𐤕 (t)). I think the only clearly incorrect part of the definition is linking solely to Ancient Greek τ (t) as if the Semitic writing systems use it instead of their own versions. This could be fixed by changing it to something like "a letter, equivalent to "t", in various Greek and Semitic alphabets, such as Ancient Greek τ (t), Phoenician 𐤕 (t), etc." Chuck Entz (talk) 15:08, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

That would at least be correct, but given that "tau" is overwhelmingly more likely to mean the Greek letter, and it's generally written taw in the Semitic context, separate senses are preferable for them IMO. —Al-Muqanna المقنع (talk) 20:02, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

The OED notes "medieval writers may not have maintained a strict distinction between Greek and Hebrew alphabets" and refers to the Cursor Mundi (early 14th century, so Middle English). It therefore seems that this confusion between tau and taw did not last into modern English. — Sgconlaw (talk) 20:11, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

I have separated them and added a few quotations. J3133 (talk) 20:34, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

Since there are three modern English quotations supporting this sense, I think it can be regarded as verified. — Sgconlaw (talk) 21:24, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

Cited, with a much-improved definition. Theknightwho (talk) 02:17, 17 July 2023 (UTC)