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)Reply

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)Reply

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)Reply

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)Reply

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

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)Reply

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)Reply

"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.

See Talk:wox#RFC discussion: June 2021.

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)Reply

 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)Reply