Talk:dream

What's the difference between "to dream about" and "to dream of"? — This unsigned comment was added by 87.160.161.142 (talk) at 11:48, 6 March 2007 (UTC).

• None. You have a choice. — This unsigned comment was added by SemperBlotto (talk • contribs) at 11:56, 6 March 2007 (UTC).

Well more or less, they are both correct but have different registers. "Dream about" is more conversational, "dream of" is a bit more literary or poetic. Widsith 12:17, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Hebrew

I changed the Hebrew translations of "dream" (verb) from "חלם" ("khalam" - dreamed, third person past tense) to "לחלום" ("lakhlom" - to dream). Liso 18:27, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

I changed them back. In this case, we follow the standard practice of all English-to-Hebrew dictionaries. —Ruakh_TALK 18:18, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Lithuanian

To dream, to see imaginary things while sleeping in Lithuanian is sapnuoti, while svajoti is to dream, to daydream, hope, wish. I'm fixing it. --195.22.191.4 12:44, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Etymology of dream

Can someone please sort out the abbreviations in this page? What is O.S? --Jackofclubs (talk • contribs) 12:24, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Old Saxon, lang=osx. DCDuring TALK 21:15, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Hebrew

I changed the Hebrew translation for the second time for the same reason. חלם is (he) dreamed, and not (a) dream. Liso 12:12, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

And I changed it back, for the second time, for the same reason. Like all English-to-Hebrew dictionaries, we translate English bare infinitives (such as "dream") to Hebrew third-person masculine singular past-tense forms (such as חלם (khalám)). —Ruakh_TALK 14:47, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Amharic

In the Amharic language of Ethiopia, "እልም" (əlm / həlm, lit. (')əl(ə)m(ə)) is "dream" and "ታለመ" is along the lines of "to be dreamt of". "እልም ታለመ" is an expression meaning the speaker doesn't believe something: "psh! that's some (day)dream!". - -sche (discuss) 20:35, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

drempt

The older past form is dreamt, but the spelling drempt obviously occurs (though rarely). I suggest that we move the misleading example to the citations page, and have two standard examples of the past on the main page. How do we distinguish between deliberate use of eye-dialect and accidental mis-spelling. Is there any evidence that anyone really believes that "drempt" is a "correct" spelling? Dbfirs 07:31, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Copied from Information Desk Wiktionary:Feedback, c, August 2013

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"drempt" just looks like a mistake to me, and I think it would to many people. Perhaps "quite rare" is not even strong enough. Also, I question whether a passage using this strange spelling (twice) should be chosen as the first and most prominent usage example. — This unsigned comment was added by 86.130.66.152 (talk) at 11:32, 7 August 2013 (UTC).

Yes, I don't think that spelling would be considered a valid option by most people. I suggest we find better examples of usage and move the strange spelling to the citations page if people want to keep it. Where in the world is it a valid spelling? It was added by Anwulf who is interested on Old and Middle English (where the spelling was used, along with many other variants). The hits in Google Books seem to be split between archaic, eye dialect and simple mis-spelling of "dreamt", but perhaps I've missed something? Dbfirs 18:13, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

drempt is pretty common in American English. It would be good to have examples using dreamt as well, but we need to keep the example with drempt as evidence of its use. —Stephen ^(Talk) 11:01, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

Is that really true? The graph at

http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=dreamt%2Cdreamed%2Cdrempt&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=17&smoothing=3&share=

suggests that it is vanishingly uncommon in AmE, plus I cannot find it in any American dictionary. 86.160.222.107 11:35, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

I'd be inclined to remove "drempt" from the dream entry, and change the entry at drempt to "Eye dialect for dreamt", but I'm happy to be proved wrong if someone can come up with some well-spelt usages that are not eye dialect or archaic (Middle English?). The OED does not recognise the spelling. Dbfirs 21:54, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

This Google Books search shows that it is used enough for WT:CFI. —Stephen ^(Talk) 22:23, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

If there is sufficient usage then I suppose it should be mentioned, but in my opinion it needs a health warning in the conjugation list (not just the usage note), where it should not be presented as on a par with "dreamed" and "dreamt". Also it should not be the dominant spelling in the examples. 86.169.185.13 23:22, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

I agree. Almost all of the citations look like mistakes or eye dialect. I would not include it in the conjugation line at dream. Equinox ◑ 23:25, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

Yes Google ngrams show marginal usage in the early 1890s (probably a single error). Some Wiktionary editors take such evidence as clear proof that "drepmt" is a mis-spelling (where it is not deliberately used as a pronunciation spelling). Dbfirs 10:16, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

I don’t know how you interpret it as probably a single error. When I look for examples from 1800 to 1892, I find quite a few. —Stephen ^(Talk) 10:59, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, yes, I meant to correct my comment above after looking again at the ngrams, but I never got back to it. It's the proportion compared with the correct spelling "dreamt" that convinces me it's not standard. There are indeed quite a few examples, but very very few that could not be considered either eye-dialect or just errors. Which ones look convincing to you? By 1879, the (errant?) spelling in an edition of Shakespeare had been corrected to "dreamt" in Chambers's Cyclopedia of English Literature. Does anyone have access to a first folio to see whether Shakespeare used the spelling "drempt"? Dbfirs 08:16, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

like a dream

Like in this little yacht handled like a dream --Backinstadiums (talk) 20:24, 4 November 2020 (UTC)

style level of "dreamt"

We have a note about frequency. But what about style? Isn't "dreamt" quite formal in the US and hardly anyone uses it in colloquial speech anymore? I would've thought so, although my knowledge of US English is mainly based on films/television. In the UK it may be less frequent, but not necessarily formal, so you'll hear it in colloquial speech. 84.63.31.91 21:13, 28 July 2024 (UTC)