Talk:boni

English use

I couldn't find an authoritative source on the Internet suggesting that "boni" is a proper plural form of "bonus" so I removed it. All dictionaries that I consulted only list "bonuses" as the correct plural form. --Borror0 19:50, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

It could be WT:RFV material though. I'm not too bothered. Mglovesfun (talk) 20:15, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

From a quick books scan, the only results were the surname and the tribe - though I didn't dig as deep as possible. Conrad.Irwin 20:16, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Actaully there may be two, I just can't read them http://books.google.co.uk/books?q=%22bankers%20boni (compare http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=%22bankers%20boni ). Still probably not enough to warrant an entry. Conrad.Irwin 20:18, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

I would like to second the english use of "boni" as a plural form of "bonus"

Proper usage of 'boni' as a plural.

Boni is in no case a proper plural form of bonus. The Latin word "bonus, boni" is typically used as an adjective that means 'good, honest, brave, noble, etc'. When used as a noun, it means 'good/moral/honest/brave man, man of honor, gentlemen'.

Improper usage in a very small subset of cases should not be considered a publishable form of the word until it enters common usage. Other dictionaries have a good feel for these things, and no other dictionary I could find included 'boni' as a proper plural form of 'bonus'.

Please do not add 'boni' as a plural again.

Addendum: Current sources for 'boni' as english usage are low-quality. All cases involve very low(1-3) usage in hundreds of pages, alongside much more common standard usage of 'bonuses'. Additionally they are translated from other languages(IE, one was originally published in germany), and the German/French usage for the words are notably different from English; for example, boni/mali are used in the context of profit/loss, which is proper in french. It is, therefore, questionable whether the usage is intentional, or simply either A: a typo, or B: the result of a faulty translation.

Context matters, and these sources do not reliably support the use of 'boni' in this context. Furthermore, no other dictionary includes 'boni' as a plural of bonus. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Boni https://www.dictionary.com/misspelling?term=boni https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/spellcheck/english/?q=boni .

These sources should be removed as unreliable, and the definition changed accordingly.

RFV discussion: September–October 2021

This entry has survived Wiktionary's verification process (permalink).

Please do not re-nominate for verification without comprehensive reasons for doing so.

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boni

This lists 'Boni' as a plural form of 'bonus' in english. However, boni in latin translates to something closer to 'gentleman', and the cited sources are not linguistics papers or dictionaries, but unrelated papers that seem to have incorrectly used the word. No dictionary I could find lists 'boni' as a plural of bonus. Someone please double check this. — This unsigned comment was added by Demiser of D (talk • contribs).

Wiktionary aims to describe language as it is used, not to prescribe how it should be used. As long as a word meets the criteria for attestation, it can be included. The form "boni" is already marked as non-standard. It's basically a similar situation as with octopus and its hypercorrect pluralized forms (octopi, which makes no sense, and octopodes, which makes more sense but still isn't the standard). 70.175.192.217 01:25, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

That's all well and good, but the cited sources are not examples of common usage. Even in the listed examples, there are only 1-3 uses in the entire book(300+ pages), the books use the more common usage(bonuses) far more commonly(27 times in one case), and the books themselves are multinational/translated. For example, one of the cases was published where 'boni' translates to 'profit', and the paper in question is likewise speaking of profit and loss. For contrast, I could certainly find multiple papers with the same accidental mistranslation or misspelling, but the same mistranslation or misspelling happening multiple times does not indicate common usage of the word. As they say over at wikipedia, Context is everything. Demiser of D (talk) 06:13, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

As a writer of linguistics papers and dictionaries I prefer boni. So do some others: It’s only incorrect if one does not purposefully follow own rules. In other words there are incorrect usages that are also correct. Or non-standard forms that accord to a standard nonetheless. Because there is not one set of rules or standard(s) applicable for a person. I can also freely mix various national standards just to tick you off—it’s the WWW and outside an English-speaking country I am not compelled to pick one, and sometimes it’s art or just idiosyncratic. There are a lot of people using words incorrectly, sometimes they constitute a majority or the government. The being incorrect doesn’t mean we don’t have to describe it. Fay Freak (talk) 20:11, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

This page is not the place for this argument. The term is cited, so it passes RFV, which merely asserts that the term is actually used. If you want to argue that we should not have a place for the term in Wiktionary, that is an argument for RFD. Kiwima (talk) 02:43, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

RFV-passed Kiwima (talk) 03:44, 10 October 2021 (UTC)