Disputatio:Doughnut

I understand the rationale behind borrowing the English word (as many other languages do), but why not make it declinable? It's true that Latin and Greek will sometimes take foreign names and make them indeclinable, but with common everyday items they are usually fit into the morphology of the language. Wouldn't "donutum -i (n)" be an easy way to make the word declinable?

This results partly from the need for verifiability, and partly from the historic guideline, adopted in practice by many if not all Wikipedias, "Wikipedia is not for things made up one day". You or I can make up the word "donutum"; an encyclopedia can't. But if a reliable source can be cited, already using this word, then we can follow its example and cite it.

The Latin lemma of a Vicipaedia article about a modern concept or a modern-day place is likely to be followed by a footnote saying where we verified the Latin word: this happens more often in Vicipaedia than in other languages, because Latin names for modern concepts are relatively hard to verify!

So if you can find a reliable Latin text or dictionary that uses a Latin form of this word (unlikely perhaps, but not impossible), please insert the Latin form and add a footnote citation. Then, if you have a named account, you can move the article. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 11:39, 21 Septembris 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I like donutum. It's unattested status is a problem, of course, but it can be obviated by providing the lemma with the {{Fontes desiderati}} tag. It is my impression that Vicipedia has quite a few such lemmata — not to speak of lemmata that would need that tag. Neander (disputatio) 15:21, 21 Septembris 2015 (UTC)[reply]

For the record: according to the OED, it was first used in print by Washington Irving in 1809, and its correct spelling is doughnut. (It's made from dough after all, not from "do.") This donut may irritate literary eyes as much as enuf for enough would, and building a Latin word on it could be said to be brave indeed. Surely a Latinization already exists somewhere. Do they have doughnuts in the Vatican? IacobusAmor (disputatio) 16:20, 21 Septembris 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I don't believe that words are borrowed by consulting OED. If donut irritates literary eyes, why not imagine that donutum has been borrowed from Romance languages. Neander (disputatio) 17:27, 21 Septembris 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps a new sense could be given to turunda. IacobusAmor (disputatio) 16:26, 21 Septembris 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I'm strongly against making up words like "donutum". Real Latin rarely does that. We all three try to demonstrate (tell me if I'm wrong) that there are are serious reasons for writing a Latin encyclopedia. We balance on the edge of ridicule. Half-baked, or rather deep-fried, inventions like "donutum" would push us over.

On the other hand, extending the meaning of turunda or another such word is an option. In my A to Z (to quote a reliable source) I said that "Greek enkris and Latin globus or globulus was a doughnut", with explanation and sources. You might well disagree with this rather bold statement, but there was undoubtedly a resemblance. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 18:30, 21 Septembris 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Well, that's it then, isn't it? "Globulus est farina subacta et fricta. . . ." IacobusAmor (disputatio) 19:40, 21 Septembris 2015 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) Accepting donutum would be a departure from our policies as I see them. There are certainly plenty of "fontes desiderati" tags, but I see those as indications that something needs to be fixed, not as solutions to translation problems. I'm not completely against donutum, but I do feel it would be somewhat of a slippery slope to marketingum, smart-phonum, thrillerum, etc. Could we do something with globulus, e.g. "globulus Anglicus" or "globulus hodiernus"? It may be relevant to compare the usage of other languages; many do borrow donut, but others, notable the Slavic ones, use native words like ponchik. I'm glad that no one has yet suggested nux farinae....‎ Lesgles (disputatio) 19:00, 21 Septembris 2015

I have it on good authority that something like that had crossed someone's mind. ;) IacobusAmor (disputatio) 19:43, 21 Septembris 2015 (UTC)[reply]

All right, Andrew's parallells made me reconsider the issue. Maybe my sudden enthusiasm for donutum was a faute de mieux called forth by a moment's desperation upon seeing placenta farta (in Pitkäranta) which is rather definiens (or part of it) than definiendum. Neander (disputatio) 20:54, 21 Septembris 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Peroratio: While acquiescing in the statement that accepting donutum would be a departure from our policies, let me comment on the statement [wrt donutum < French donut] that "[r]eal Latin rarely does that." It seems to me that Gallic loans such as carrus, essedum, lineum, etc bear some evidence against that statement. But of course, this has no bearing on Vicipaedia. Neander (disputatio) 10:01, 22 Septembris 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Oddly enough, rethinking my sweeping claim, I first thought of the same linguistic source, though the word that first came to my mind was "bardus". There are indeed lots of Celtic loanwords in Latin, and a good number of Germanic ones, and many others too. I was wrong there. But I still think that an encyclopedia ought to be conservative in this practice. Others look to us for Latin equivalents, and Vicipaedia is infinitely mirrored across the Web.

Not now pursuing that disputatio, but out of curiosity, I see, as to that last example, that the Old Celtic form from which the Latin word was borrowed is reconstructed as *bardos. I wonder whether there was any morphological regularity in the adoption of Celtic words in Latin, as there obviously was in the adoption of Greek words. It's not impossible: there was evidently a great deal of Celtic-Latin bilingualism. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 12:46, 22 Septembris 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Obviously, you're right. Those Celts who were in contact with ancient Greeks and Romans, were not speakers of Proto-Celtic, but it is quite possible, indeed, that the theme vowel -o-, in words such as *bardos, was retained, giving a pattern very familiar to speakers of Greek and Latin. Neander (disputatio) 18:36, 22 Septembris 2015 (UTC)[reply]