Talk:-x

Deletion discussion

The following information passed a request for deletion.

This discussion is no longer live and is left here as an archive. Please do not modify this conversation, but feel free to discuss its conclusions.

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Same as above, except this time for certain French nouns. It also isn't productive in English. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 17:16, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

Delete per the definition itself. Mglovesfun (talk) 17:31, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

Move to RfV or delete. DCDuring TALK 15:32, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

I think I've managed to attest this suffix in use in English formations; see binioux, Citations:cointreaux, Miniconjoux, and the insufficiently-attested-for-an-entry Citations:maraboux. — I.S.M.E.T.A. 00:02, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

Moved to RfV. bd2412 T 16:10, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

RFV discussion

The following information has failed Wiktionary's verification process.

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RFV for the plural suffix (from the homographic French). Bd2412 closed the suffix's RFD discussion with "Moved to RfV" (see Talk:-x#Deletion discussion), but it was never sent here. I bring this here for that procedural reason. Regarding the suffix's attestation, I think binioux, Citations:cointreaux, Citations:maraboux, and Miniconjoux are enough to verify the independent use of -x in English. — I.S.M.E.T.A. 00:34, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

I'm not so sure they're English. The first quote for binioux is instructive: "...the bagpipes or binioux as they are known in France". The writer is obviously under the impression that binioux is the correct plural in French, and is using it as a French word. Being bad at speaking French doesn't change your French into English, it's just bad French. It would be like creating an English entry for buenas días because some people who don't speak Spanish very well think día is feminine. It looks to me like most, if not all, of these quotes are of people attempting to use the French plural for a French word, but getting it wrong (except for cointreaux, which apparently is the correct plural in French- see fr:cointreaux). Chuck Entz (talk) 04:47, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

To quote myself, mut. mut., in #-oth above (my post timestamped: 01:15, 18 January 2014), "I think that use of a plural-marking suffix in contexts that would be incorrect in the source language is a sign of its morphemity — it shows that the user of the suffix is thinking ‘[-x] marks a plural’, and not just that there are a bunch of listemes where the singular happens to end in [-u] and the plural meanwhile happens to end in [-ux]." Of course, uses of cointreaux in English do nothing to establish the morphemity of -x, since that plural could simply have been borrowed directly from French (rather than having been constructed independently in English). BTW, if *buenas días is attested in English, then yes, it should have some kind of entry (compare baristo). — I.S.M.E.T.A. 15:55, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

It's kind of ambiguous. On one hand, it's productive use in English by English speakers. But on the other, those same speakers consciously intend to form a plural in a non-English way. Is it English if English speakers try to purposely apply French grammar to French words that are used in English? It's really not different from Latin or Greek plurals. —CodeCat 00:16, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

Nobody seems very convinced, and a year has passed, so I'm calling this RFV failed. Equinox ◑ 16:24, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

Gender-neutral suffix

However, see Wiktionary:Tea_room/2015/February#-.40:_the_suffix where it is argued that something like this is not a suffix and should be moved back to x; compare -@. - -sche (discuss) 06:31, 5 August 2016 (UTC)

See also Wiktionary:Tea_room/2019/March#-x_(or_-x-)_as_an_general_inclusive_affix?. - -sche (discuss) 20:49, 16 March 2019 (UTC)

Wiktionary:Tea_room/2022/August#uses_of_x:_to_cover_at_x_or_as_affixes_-x_and_-x-?. - -sche (discuss) 18:44, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

English

As plural of French loanwords. For many words in -eau and -ieu adopted from French, we still write the plural with -x as an alternative to the English -s . Sometimes we pronounce it /z/ , as in standard English plurals, but if we want to be truer to a word’s origins, we often do not. It seems that we appreciate the look of final -x as a plural marker, perhaps as a reminder that these words came from French.

Portmanteaus for the linguistic sense, but -x is used for the item of luggage; (iv) purlieus; the - x of the plurals jeux d’esprit, prie-dieux, and often of milieux, is left unpronounced, unlike that of rouleaux.

--Backinstadiums (talk) 11:04, 17 July 2021 (UTC)

"30x classes"

How does this example read out exactly? --Backinstadiums (talk) 08:28, 6 May 2022 (UTC)