Talk:-able

I'm not convinced the two meanings - able to be & fit to be - are really distinct at all.

The two examples given for "fit to be" could both be easily used in the "able to be" sense, without necessarily implying any fitness at all.--Richardb 12:40, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)

From RFC

Someone added some blanks at the end of every line - an indication of possible 'bot vandalism? --Connel MacKenzie T C 20:16, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Usually that's due to a novice editor using a strange browser, or glitches introduced when transferring text between the browser edit box and an external editor (for those who partake of such things).

In this case it looks like they were introduced at 21:05 on 7 April 2006 by Andrew massyn when he reverted the vandalism of 19:27, 7 April 2006 by 63.241.58.84. (Which is odd, because reverting is usually an error-free no-brainer, if you know how to do it -- but perhaps Andrew tried to do it by hand.)

I've run the text through an external editor (carefully!) to remove all the spaces, and confirmed that it's now identical to the version Andrew tried to revert to, except for the deliberate changes Jaaari, you, and Hippietrail have made since. –Scs 21:35, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Thank you! --Connel MacKenzie T C 05:15, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

• This may be a sign that somebody has cut and paste from here to a text editor and back again. Web pages collapse all whitespace such as tabs and even line breaks into a single space or nothing at all. Often, and it may depend on the browser, the real linebreaks end up with a single space being added to the end of every line. Somebody who works on Spanish entries leaves these behind all the time and I've noticed it myself when working with text on web pages and in text editors when pasting back and forth. — Hippietrail 21:55, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Ask me next time you want to get rid of them. My javascript removes them automatically, and it has been relatively error-free up to now. —Vildricianus 23:02, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Should I generate a cleanup list, or request a 'bot from someone like Scs or Patrik? Or both? It seems like it may be an ongoing problem. --Connel MacKenzie T C 05:14, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

I don't have any bots (yet). I do have http://dafizilla.sourceforge.net/viewsourcewith/index.php installed in Firefox, which lets me use an external editor without any manual cutting and pasting, and I'm trying to rig up a way for the external editor to be sed. But yes, feel free to ask when you come across these, and I can take care of them. –Scs 13:22, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

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-able

Sense #6, "indicating obligation": really? The contributor who added this also added an example with "taxable", which I removed as clearly exemplifying the previous senses; but I'm not so sure about his/her "payable" example. My interpretation is that "is payable", i.e. "may be paid", is simply a more polite way of saying "must be paid", but I thought I'd bring it here and see if anyone can pull up a more unambiguous example of this sense. —Ruakh_TALK 16:40, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

RFV failed. Sense removed. —Ruakh_TALK 01:29, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

referencable

Please take a look at Talk:referencable. IMHO this is a misspelling rather than an alternative spelling. --PanchoS (talk) 15:43, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

timeable

In the usage notes it is being said that the mute -e at the end is usually dropped when appending -able unless this would change the pronunciation of the penultimate consonant (like c or g where the -e is not omitted). But what about timeable (used in pulsar timing)? Shall it be added as an exception to the rule?

The notes say "usually", not "always": we don't really need to list the exceptions. Equinox ◑ 19:15, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

RFC discussion: December 2010

The following discussion has been moved from Wiktionary:Requests for cleanup (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.

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-able

[still need cleanup, since 2007] It was noted that "Someone with easier access to OED" should check whether "the 'references' simply repeat verbatim". — Beobach 08:36, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

4. subject to

I would subsume 4. subject to into 1. able to be done. --Backinstadiums (talk) 14:22, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

aggregable

A brief note should be added on the process that results in words such as aggregable --Backinstadiums (talk) 12:52, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

Pronunciation

According to the Longman Pronunciation Dictionary

In general, this suffix is stress-neutral (inˈterpretable, deˈsirable, comˈmunicable). There are, however, some important exceptions (ˈadmirable, ˈpreferable, ˈreputable), and speakers disagree for some words (applicable, comparable, formidable, hospitable, irrevocable, lamentable, transferable) JMGN (talk) 17:42, 31 January 2024 (UTC)