Talk:sext-

RFD discussion: February 2019–March 2020

The following information has failed Wiktionary's deletion process (permalink).

It should not be re-entered without careful consideration.

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sext-

This doesn't seem like an English suffix, just a morphological element that appears in several borrowed terms. —Rua (mew) 10:29, 25 February 2019 (UTC)

I don't think it is either, just an adaptation from Latin in the given words. DonnanZ (talk) 11:21, 25 February 2019 (UTC)'

• Keep and fix — (Firstly, it's not a suffix at all, but a prefix.  I digress.)  Sext- is the Latin ordinal prefix for 'sixth.'  The page should be fixed to reflect this.  That said, with the exception of sextus, every word on the page is an English word.  Sextus should be removed from the English section of the page and added to the Latin section (that is, once you go and fix the page to reflect that sext- is also Latin).  allixpeeke (talk) 11:57, 25 February 2019 (UTC)

I still think this "prefix" can be deleted. Latin sextus, which is included, but shouldn't be, is the root; sextuplet comes from sextuple apparently. DonnanZ (talk) 12:14, 25 February 2019 (UTC)

@Allixpeeke If it is an English prefix, which English words has it been prefixed to, then? —Rua (mew) 16:52, 25 February 2019 (UTC)

@Rua, sextillion is a number in the English language, combining the prefix sext- and the suffix -illion, and sextate is an English word, combining the prefix sext- and the suffix -ate.  allixpeeke (talk) 05:38, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

Delete. Sextillion was apparently first coined in French with a Latin root. And the given etymology for sextate says it comes from Latin sextus. The sext- prefix has just been added by Allixpeeke, diff. DonnanZ (talk) 10:29, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

Question 1 — Does being-first-coined-in-French make a word not English?  Does having-a-Latin-root make a word not English?  If the answer to those two questions is yes, that would seem to imply that the word decade should be removed from this category.  I genuinely do not understand what makes sextillion's relationship to sext- different than decade's relationship to deca-.  Please explain, so that I may eschew making errors in my future edits.

Question 2 — If sext- can be objectively said to not be both an English prefix and a Latin prefix, if it can be objectively said to be only a Latin prefix, wouldn't that mean that the appropriate course of action is to edit the page to reflect that it is a Latin prefix.  It appears to me that it only makes sense to delete the page if it is not a prefix at all.  Is that the case?  Is sect- neither an English nor a Latin prefix?

Thanks in advance.  allixpeeke (talk) 12:10, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

If a word is coined in French and then borrowed in its entirety into English, it cannot be used to support the idea of an English prefix on that word. (If you prepare and cook a dish from French meat and French cheese in France, and then import the whole thing to England to eat it, you can't then meaningfully say it was prepared and cooked in England...) Equinox ◑ 13:59, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

The stem of Latin animus is anim-, found back in words like animal, animate, animism and animosity. That is no reason to declare it a prefix. Precisely the same holds for sext-: it is the stem of Latin sextus found back in some words, but it is not a prefix. Ergo, delete.  --Lambiam 17:03, 25 February 2019 (UTC)

Delete per proponent and Lambiam. Per utramque cavernam 17:14, 25 February 2019 (UTC)

Keep Based on my subjective assessment as a native English speaker with a GRE Reading score in the 96th percentile, sext- is a prefix that is used in words that are used in English. I would recommend keeping this page. I consider sext- a prefix in the language that I use. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 15:09, 28 February 2019 (UTC) (modified)

Do you also consider anim- a prefix?  --Lambiam 19:33, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

Boasting about your reading score means nothing. You must prove that words were formed in English with this prefix. You don't see scientists saying "I'm cool, therefore the superhadron exists". Equinox ◑ 00:48, 1 March 2019 (UTC)

Well, except for Feynman, but he can't weigh in here. - TheDaveRoss 13:38, 1 March 2019 (UTC)

Agreed. We'll still have to count it as a "keep". Sigh. Chignon – Пучок 22:46, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

Harking back to sextuplet, we have sextuple as derived from sextus, although Oxford says it comes from Medieval Latin sextuplus. But there seems to be confusion amongst some users over words that begin with something which isn't a true prefix. DonnanZ (talk) 10:28, 2 March 2019 (UTC)

I imagine professional lexicographers have an extremely high reading score. Me? I'm just an amateur. DonnanZ (talk) 11:44, 2 March 2019 (UTC)

Delete - TheDaveRoss 13:09, 23 May 2019 (UTC)

Would people be willing to keep this if it were not labelled a prefix or presented as ever having been productive in English, but were instead labelled e.g. a "morpheme" or "element" or something and presented solely as a kind of aid to understanding words that contain it? Would an approach like that, which someone proposed in a discussion of another word which I can't find at the moment, be of use/interest for other cases, like [never-productive] English instances of various Latin "prefix variants" like Talk:sug-? ... Eh. Delete the prefix per nom. We can revisit if we decide it'd be useful to present "elements" like that. - -sche (discuss) 10:01, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

Failed - TheDaveRoss 15:31, 29 March 2020 (UTC)