Talk:boar

Bär

"Bär" links to German "Bär" 'bear'. However, this word has nothing to do with boar, since it means "bear", cf. Dutch beer 'bear' - beer 'boar': Philippea (Etymologisch Woordenboek van het Nederlands): "De oorsprong is onbekend; er bestaat geen verwantschap met → beer 1 [i. e. 'bear']". Same applies to the German words, cf. the older Grimm, Dt. Wb., "BÄR" 'boar': "dem vorausgehenden [i. e. 'bear'] völlig unverwandt". There is no entry for "Bär" meaning "boar" in the German wiktionary. Should we remove this link?--178.12.223.65 16:37, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

No, we should add a second etymology and sense to Bär indicating the existence of this dialectal (now perhaps completely extinct) word for "boar". There is also Beier[1] in this sense. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 18:46, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

I added it, but I think it may be necessary to move it to Middle High German, since I can't find any modern uses (or any Middle High German uses, for that matter, but Middle High German can have an entry based on mentions alone). - -sche (discuss) 00:43, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

It's still common in Low German though, e. g. Mecklenburg: Bir [biːɐ̯], cf. Meckl. Wb., vol. 2, col. 886. Some older People still use it today when they speak Low German. Usage in older High German prints (e. g. Neustrelitzsche Anzeigen 1846) seemed to be influenced by the spoken Low German dialect: "2 tragende Sauen, 1 Beier" '2 gestating sows, 1 boar'. "Beier" seemed to be used in Lusatia, cf. the article "Sammlung mancher vorzugsweise niederlausitischer Spracheigenthümlichkeiten (Provinzialismen und Idiotismen)": "Beyer, ein ungeschnittenes Schwein, Eber, Zuchteber" (Neues lausitzisches Magazin, vol. XXX [1853], p. 235). I don't know if it's still used today.--178.12.223.65 13:51, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

English plural

The English Wikipedia article has several instances of 'boar' as plural, including these:

"Wild boar frequently wallow..." "Wild boar are known to be competent swimmers" "whether or not the returning boar are damaging our woodlands." A news article also sometimes uses 'boar' as plural: "Wild boar became extinct" "asked not to feed the boar or leave their bins out overnight because the beasts come looking for food." "damage done by wild boar" "the sight of large wild boar foraging in waste bins." "The wild boar have been digging up the graveyard" "is emboldening the boar towards" "but the boar always seem to manage to get in." "a group of boar living in the area" (direct quote from a warden).

"wild boar are" returns 60,800 results on Google, "wild boars are" returns 44,700 results. I know it would be better to search in language corpuses, but it seems many people do treat 'boar' as a plural as well. Perhaps etymologically 'boars' might be more consistent (although if 'deer' can be plural and both are from Middle English, ~), but should we add 'boar' as a plural as well?

But, I'm not an expert. Is one sense of 'boar' in English actually an uncountable noun? Like this: fish ‎(countable and uncountable, plural fish or fishes) 23.121.191.18 20:10, 22 January 2017 (UTC)