Talk:swot

Etymology

Added section title. —Nils von Barth (nbarth) (talk) 07:10, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

I don't believe this etymology:

from "Study WithOut Teachers"

Wordswarm has it as a variant of sweat. 86.177.236.93 22:05, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

I agree. Acronym-etymologies are almost always false. Chambers has the sweat ety too. Equinox ◑ 22:07, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Close. "Study without tutors." Not sure why the confusion or why any one would simply state they don't believe it. I am surprised to see this gap here at Wikitionary after all this time. This is as surprising a gap as not knowing what "SCUBA" stands for or that it is an acronym. SWOT is germane at Oxbridge and Trinity Dublin, but since there is very little left of the tradition of assigned tutors in Australia or New Zealand, for example, they usually have no idea. I heard this on Cambridge and Oxford campuses back in the early 70s while attending conferences in England. I simply asked and was told it's meaning - "Studies without tutors". It is a saying that predated the people who responded. I asked the same questions years later in Australia and New Zealand and Canada - where it seems to have fallen out of use - and never got a knowledgable reply. This makes sense given that these countries have not got the same tradition of assigning tutors to undergraduates. Malangthon 8:10, 30 September, 2011 (CST)

Merriam-Webster (a dictionary edited by professional lexicographers) says it's from sweat. So does Chambers (another professional dictionary). Anyone want to check the OED? I repeat, acronym-etymologies are almost always false — except for some relatively modern terms like scuba and laser. Equinox ◑ 14:18, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

The OED (that's the Oxford English Dictionary) gives the etymology as "Dialectal variant of sweat". SemperBlotto 14:19, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

And your point? Just cut and paste the OED or Webster - which everyone knows has never failed to give a exhaustive and irrefutable defintion of every word that ever existed - why would we need the Wikitionary? This is not a mirror for other dictionaries. Get on the train and ride to either campus and ask the oldest person working there in an academic capacity. John Cleese says "Studies without tutors." Call him. Downing College, Cambridge. As does Michael Palin. Ernst Rutherford referred to swotting in this way and it is still used in New Zealand to this day.

Meanwhile, the "almost always" false assertion has now tied this to what is an argument that can not be substantiated. Let us begin with the first questions of this hypothesis to be tested - how big will the sample be and what is the population? This is exactly the attitude that makes wikitionary and wikipedia a dubious source for any serious about getting useful information. Malangthon 8:40, 30 September, 2011 (CST)

Here we go and this is why we are not a mirror

Dictionary definition of 'siphon' has been wrong for nearly a century: "A schoolboy error in the Oxford English Dictionary's definition of 'siphon' has come to light after nearly 100 years in print [1] Malangthon 15:30, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

This is classic and it is why etymologists and lexicographers rely on actual scholarship and not Websters. Here is OED's quote from the debacle ""The OED entry for siphon dates from 1911 and was written by editors who were not scientists ... Our files suggest that no one has queried the definition before. We are revising that entire dictionary text now, and I have copied your helpful comments to the revision file, to ensure they are taken into account when the entry is rewritten.""

Point? You want to cut and paste or paraphrase to Wikitionary? You are simply providing a poor mirror and are providing the discerning reader with nothing that would not be better developed in other sources. You make a joke out of the entire effort. That is naught but sabotage. Malangthon 15:37, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Further damage can be done this "dialectical variant" argument by pointing out that "swot" is not a derivative of sweat in Anglo- Saxon, in Anglo-Saxon, "swot" is "sweet". but see [2] as noted in An Anglo-Saxon dictionary: based on the manuscript collections of the late ... By Joseph Bosworth, Thomas Northcote Toller Malangthon 15:53, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

And while effusing praise and adoration for the OED, peruse this writer's pointed discussion on why this is inadvisable [3] Malangthon 15:56, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

The fact our etymology is the same as Oxford and Websters and Oxford and Websters are not always right does not make our etymology wrong! The fact you have some support from other celebrities (not lexicographers, but celebrities, famous actors and whatnot) isn't tenuously relevant. It might be worth putting that the etymology is disputed, but of course, only if it actually is, and by more people than just you and John Cleese. Mglovesfun (talk) 18:22, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Requested edit

French translation to noun sense 3 should be "bachotage". This, that and the other (talk) 04:31, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

used by Boris Johnson to insult David Cameron

"The whole September session is a rigmarole introduced by girly swot Cameron to show the public that MPs are earning their crust" - PM Boris Johnson's comments (16.08.2019) on a memorandum on the possible prorogation of parliament [4]----Bancki (talk) 12:51, 24 September 2019 (UTC)