Talk:befraud

RFD discussion: August 2020–September 2021

The following information passed a request for deletion (permalink).

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.

---

befraud

Befraud appears to be an uncommon mistake for defraud. I checked a couple dictionaries and didn't see it. I did not check OED. Most of the search results are scan errors. It does appear 3 times in durable places so this is not an RFV. I propose to delete as an uncommon error. Vox Sciurorum (talk) 13:37, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

"not in dictionaries" is what distinguishes Wiktionary from most other dictionaries ! We represent actual usage. We also cannot make arbitrary judgements. Pairs such as defile and befile, dehead and behead, etc. can equally be viewed as parallel developments, and are not that uncommon. Would you consider dehead to be a mistake for behead ? Leasnam (talk) 13:54, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

CFI explicitly contemplate looking at other dictionaries for guidance. Vox Sciurorum (talk) 15:41, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

That doesn't inherently exclude entries that aren't though, right? Tharthan (talk) 22:20, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

• "It does appear 3 times in durable places", so keep. Even if it is, prescriptively speaking, a "mistake", people might encounter it and what to know what it means. —Mahāgaja · talk 14:10, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

  According to CFI we don't keep rare misspellings. I don't see evidence that this is anything other than a very rare misspelling of defraud. Be- is described as rare or no longer productive. Vox Sciurorum (talk) 15:43, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

Perhaps the label rare or no longer productive requires review. If you're absolutely convinced there's a monster in Loch Ness, you're likely to see one. Leasnam (talk) 15:52, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

It's not a misspelling, it's a word with a completely different prefix. —Mahāgaja · talk 15:54, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

FWIW, the 2000 cite also uses "defrauded" and so the instance of "befraud" could arguably be a typo or misspelling (i.e. unintentional), especially if the authors are not native speakers. And (via Googling) I spot a copy of the 1991 book on b-ok.cc where their OCRed text, at least, has "defraud" in the place where the books.google.com version has "befraud"; the book does not use "defraud" anywhere else, nor does the 1987 book. This complicates things. But if valid citations exist, I would say keep this since, as Mahagaja says, it'd be a different word with a different (semantically intelligible/valid, if nonstandard/unusual) prefix. I recently created a similar entry, ensiege. At worst one might label such things misconstructions. (Certainly, befraud needs some {{label}}s: rare? and/or nonstandard?) - -sche (discuss) 19:09, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

Following your advice, I've labelled befraud as rare and also directed the entry as a synonym of defraud. Leasnam (talk) 01:27, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

• Delete as a rare misspelling per WT:CFI#Spellings. (befraud*10000),defraud at Google Ngram Viewer. One could argue whether this is a misspelling or a misconstruction, though. Deleting a vanishingly rare misconstruction would be a CFI override, I guess, but much in the spirit of deleting rare misspellings. The notion that this cannot be a misspelling since it uses a different prefix seems refuted by the 2000 cite mentioned by -sche for the reasoning supplied by -sche. --Dan Polansky (talk) 07:54, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
• Keep. Not a misspelling, per others. J3133 (talk) 08:12, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

Just want to note that I'm concerned about Leasnam still creating these Anglo-Saxonish entries based on typos and rare mistakes by Indians. Equinox ◑ 19:13, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

fraud isn't Germanic, though, Equinox. Though perhaps that is why you said "Anglo-Saxonish". Tharthan (talk) 22:20, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

Keep per others. Definitely nonstandard, but I'm hesitant to rule this a misspelling or a misconstruction. The cites seem to include several native speakers as well. ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 13:41, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

Keep. DAVilla 04:27, 6 June 2021 (UTC)

Keep, per above. Leasnam (talk) 06:49, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

RFD-kept AG202 (talk) 05:00, 28 September 2021 (UTC)