Talk:Spaghetti

RFV discussion: August–December 2021

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Spaghetti

German: “(derogatory) an Italian”. Tagged by 2003:DE:3720:3792:B509:198F:D7A1:CDBB today, not listed: “because of the gender”, “https://books.google.com/books?id=zoB05Av1AoUC&pg=PA227&q=%22ein%20Spaghetti%22 (food, m. or n.); https://books.google.com/books?id=AgdvAgAAQBAJ&pg=PT119&q=%22ein%20Spaghetti%22 , https://books.google.com/books?id=iunUBgAAQBAJ&pg=PT79 , [https://books.google.com/books?]id=gbOqCgAAQBAJ&pg=PT354 (person, m. or n.)” J3133 (talk) 14:48, 22 August 2021 (UTC)

The citations indicate that the singular noun meaning "a strand of spaghetti" is neuter, though searching for "einen Spaghetti" and "eine Spaghetti" shows some people consider that sense masculine or feminine as well. I'm not finding unambiguous proof that the sense meaning "Italian person" is masculine, but I can't imagine that it isn't. It's pretty clearly short for Spaghettifresser. —Mahāgaja · talk 14:02, 24 August 2021 (UTC)

The food, a single spaghetti strain, can be feminine and masculine (more common f. than m.?)

Some random examples:

• f.: "Jeder bekommt eine Spaghetti." ([1]), "Kurzum, eine Spaghetti ist eindimensional." ([2]), "Ich fische mit der Gabel eine Spaghetti (oder nennt man eine einzelne Nudel einen Spaghetto?) aus dem trüben Wasser" ([3])
• m.: "den ersten Spaghetti im einer Gabel darauf nieder haelt" & "Man fuegt einen Spaghetti dich an den anderen an" (from US, which explains the nonstandard spelling), "Sie haben nämlich einen Spaghetti am rechten Ohr kleben." ([4]), "lässt mein Freund Leo einen Spaghetti nach dem anderen fallen" ([5])

As for the person, it seems indeed more plausible to be: Spaghetti (“food”) > Spaghettifresser m (“Italian”) (= Spaghetti +‎ fressen +‎ -er) > Spaghetti m (“Italian”). Then there would also be two different etymologies. Additionally there might be Spaghetti f (“female Italian”), be it derived from Spaghetti m or from Spaghettifresserin f. But the person term's gender is not so easy to attest, and Spaghetti f (“Italian”) simply looks questionable, dubious, incorrect. --2003:DE:3720:3733:F84C:4C4E:8FDB:64C9 10:29, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

Started a cleanup + cited the “Italian” sense. – Jberkel 14:24, 26 October 2021 (UTC)

RFV-passed --Fytcha (talk) 03:54, 11 December 2021 (UTC)