Talk:shine

Paint?

Have you ever heard of "shine" being referred to as a coat of paint?

Bruguiea 18:00, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Yes, x shine or shine x, x = colour. 81.68.255.36 14:07, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Example sentences

It would be nice for translators if there were some English example sentences, especially of the distinguish and apparent meanings. (Is there a template that I can use for this kind of request?) henne 09:21, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Since when?

Since when is ‘shined’ the preterite of ‘shine’? I’ve never heard it in this context. 79.176.11.135 16:09, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Haven’t you ever shined your shoes? —Stephen 16:13, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Are you asking "have shined" or "shined"

And it occurs in archaic English. "As upon the face of Moses, so also hath it shined unto your hearts." Equinox ◑ 16:57, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

That is, Early Modern English

Since Middle English in Northern dialects. There seems to be a tendency toward shone in British usage and shined in American usage today.

Language filter

Recently, a language filter blocked the word 'shine'. Why would that be such a bad word? Is moonshine a bad word in English? 81.68.255.36 17:36, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Not AFAIK. Who blocked it and in what context? ※〖 Raifʻhār Doremítzwr 〗 〰 ⓤ · ⓣ · ⓒ 〰 17:39, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

I think I've seen (deprecated template usage) shiner as racist slang for a black person. Equinox ◑ 19:22, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

The computer blocked it, it was in the context 'gold shine'. Later I entered 'shine' to check if that was the actual word that was blocked and it blocked it again. Very odd. 81.68.255.36 11:20, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

I've searched some and indeed shine can be used for a black person: shine (n.)

1529, "brightness," from shine (v.). Meaning "polish given to a pair of boots" is from 1871. Derogatory meaning "black person" is from 1908. Phrase to take a shine to "fancy" is Amer.Eng. slang from 1839. Shiner for "black eye" first recorded 1904.. Due to your reactions however, it seems to me it is not such a widespread or well-known meaning. 81.68.255.36 12:29, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

No, it hasn’t been used in that sense in a long time, and almost no one would understand it that way today. I can’t think of any bad sense for shine. Maybe whoever created your filter typed it by accident. Maybe he meant to type shite. —Stephen 23:42, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

The OED American English Dictionary does have "Shine - offensive, a contemptuous term for a black or dark-skinned person." But no one has said this on the street in a good half century.

"Irish" Section

The section labeled "Irish" is highly confusing.

The word "Irish" usually means the Gaelic language spoken in Ireland.

But presumably actual Gaelic does not use words spelled with an Anglicized "sh" as shown here.

So is the section supposed to present Gaelic-origin words that have been borrowed into the Irish-English dialect and Anglicized in spelling?

To make this absolute clear, change the section title to either "Irish Gaelic" or "Irish-English Dialect".

This should be done globally in Wiktionary if necessary.

No, the Irish section is okay. Irish does use the digraph sh. See for example the declension of sine#Irish. —Stephen 02:41, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm seeing shine only as a vocative form for Irish Gaelic sine on that page. The "Irish" section here describes shine as a "mutated form of sine". The correct term would be "declined" not "mutated" -- but "vocative form" should be specified anyway.

In general the term "Irish" meaning "Irish Gaelic language" is primarily an Irish-English and not standard English usage. For readers outside of Ireland, it would be much clearer to use "Irish Gaelic", "Gaelic", or "Gaeilge".

Shine - Shone - Shined

An issue that is left ambiguous in all reference works I'm seeing is the usage "shine - shone - shined", rather than "shine - shined - shined" or "shine - shone - shone".

The Middle English Dictionary appears to indicate that "shine - shone - shined" would be the most historically-legitimate pattern moving into Early Modern English:

http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/m/mec/med-idx?type=id&id=MED39953

shīnen - shōne - shīned are the most-common forms given

I've entered this in the Etymology section, but can't find any references online for Early Modern English, or say 19th century usage by "better writters".

I've done some additional research and for Early Modern English find in the King James Bible that shined/shone alternate with no distinction for the simple past, and only shined is used for the past participle. The complete works of Shakespeare have only shone for the simple past, and alas, no occurrences of a past participle. In a review of Google results, shone as a part participle does not seem to appear prior to the 19th century, and then all the usage seems to be in intentionally-archaic writing (romantic poetry, hymns, translations of exotic religious texts, etc.). So I would say that "has shone" is a recent pedantic hypercorrection. But this is all only for your interest, and can't be added to the article as it is "personal research".

This verb probably should be split into 2 etymologies: one, a strong verb, with shone as the preterite, is clearly for "emitting light" ("The sun shone bright all around"). The other (preterite = shined means "to put a shine on" ("He shined my shoes really well"). As far as the past participle goes, it should (prescriptively :\ , that is) always be shined (but is there a shinnen""?) Leasnam (talk) 19:05, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Why should the change from past participle "shined" to "shone" be pedantic? To the contrary, it follows the long-standing colloquial tendency to replace the p.p. form with the preterite form, which has become standard English in some cases (e.g. "sit, sat, sat" for proper "sit, sat, sitten"). I suppose the fact that Americans prefer "shined" has to do with their pronouncing "shone" like "shown", but in other accents this problem doesn't arise (because "shone" is pronounced "shon"). And British dictionaries give only "shone" for p.p. and preterite. They recognise "shined" only for the shoe sense. Finally, the claim that p.p. "shone" arose only in the 19th century is absolute nonsense. Look for "had shone" on Google Books and you'll find numerous attestations from the 17th and 18th centuries. It's not found in the 16th century, but that may have to do with the number of sources included ("had shined" gets 4 hits.) 84.63.31.38 11:12, 24 September 2022 (UTC)