Talk:wax

The Gothic and Ancient Greek etymons in Etymology 2 appear to be corrupted somehow. The former shows as a long line of asterisks and the second as ;'e%cein. If it makes any difference I'm using Links 2.2.

It must be your browser or fonts. Both words are fine: 𐍅𐌰𐌷𐍃𐌾𐌰𐌽 (wahsjan), ἀέξειν (aéxein). —Stephen 14:40, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

On my computer, the Gothic shows up as a bunch of tiny boxes, each with 6 tiny numbers inside. 71.66.97.228 17:26, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

That’s because you don’t have a Gothic font installed. Some Gothic fonts are to be found at http://www.wazu.jp/gallery/Fonts_Gothic.html —Stephen 03:28, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Thank you, I just got one of the fonts and the Gothic text displays properly now. 71.66.97.228 07:18, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks from me as well ... now those squares are gone! --AnWulf ... Ferþu Hal! 17:39, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

whack not wax

Despite of Koont's error, the word for to kill someone is whack not wax. This is a byspel of the wine-whine merger on the front end and a befuddling of the x - cks luden (sounds) on the back end.

For me, if someone got waxed, they got hair removed ... not killed. --AnWulf ... Ferþu Hal! 17:39, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

See additional citation. At least since 1965, "got waxed" appears in print fiction as meaning "got killed" or "got decisively defeated". DCDuring TALK 12:29, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

"Hone in" for "home in" appeared in the late 50s ... still doesn't make "hone in" right! Wax for decisively defeated, I can buy. It's a stretch, but I can buy into it. I'v heard it that way ... and I can see how wax could be stretched for that (if yu'v waxed someone, yu hav, in a sense, left them naked and thus defeated). But defeated doesn't equate to killed. I can defeat someone over and over without, literally, killing the person. Only my thoughts ... I think wax for whack as in to kill, attack, or cut is an eggcorn and thus wrong.

RFC discussion: June 2021

See Talk:wox#RFC discussion: June 2021.

Middle English, Chaucer request

In the General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, approximately five to ten lines after the Pardoner is "officially" announced as one of the group, comes this line: "This Pardoner had hair as yellow as wax". If it's a good enough quote, then I'll leave it to the experts on Chaucer (and copyrights) to choose the best version of the source. TooManyFingers (talk) 01:53, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

 Done. In case you're wondering, here's a few notes about the quote you've provided:

• The Hengwrt MS has both wax and wex; given that it's generally considered relatively close to Chaucer's autograph, there's a good chance he had both forms in his speech.
• The [Par]doner in the quote corresponds to Ꝑdoner in the manuscript; the brackets denote the expansion of a abbreviation.
• A stryke (modern English strick) can apparently denote either one or two bushels of flax. Given the context, "a bushel" is obviously the best translation.

Hazarasp (parlement · werkis) 14:21, 8 September 2022 (UTC)