Talk:Dyke

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I saw you reverted the notion of dykes as "masculinely" acting. I was responsible for the error, which I'd picked up in Oxford Advanced Learner's. I was already pretty questioning myself, and am glad you found it!
-- Ruhrjung 09:19 16 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Ok, so is it official, that "dyke" is not specific to more masculine lesbians? When I did some searching on the internet it seemed the consensus was that it referred to a "butchy", or "masculine" lesbian, although I wasn't the original person who defined it this way on wikipedia. I was the one who added the work "disparaging" though, which I think is necessary to the definition I think... dave 17:00 16 Jul 2003 (UTC)
I saw the adjective 'masculine' there and wondered if that was really what it meant, because I only know it as a synonym for lesbian. So, I looked it up, and neither Merriam-Webster nor the American Heritage dictionary say anything about it being a term for masculine lesbians. That's why I removed that adjective. -- Kimiko 22:29 16 Jul 2003 (UTC)
You are right, I checked www.dictionary.com again, and I only saw one reference to "masculine", which was from WordNet ® 1.6, © 1997 Princeton University whatever that is. However www.urbandictionary.com had a lot of references to masculine in its defintion. In some ways urbandictionary.com is a lot more current, but it is still not credible in my opinion, because their deletion/revision system is a bit dysfunctional in my opinion. Thanks for removing masculine in that case, since I guess it didn't belong there. dave 04:13 17 Jul 2003 (UTC)
Probably the result of a confusion of dyke with bull dyke, which actually implies the masculine part. Tweak
Right, bull dyke is even in the american heritage dictionary on www.dictionary.com as well as www.urbandictionary.com. dave 14:28 17 Jul 2003 (UTC)


MyRedDice, the reason why I am putting the dyke/dike spelling back it is because that was the reason I clarified this in the beginning. I saw the word "dike" used in some articles, and I was confused because where I come from we have only "dyke"s, geological and otherwise. This needs to be made clear, so when people click on the "dike" link for example they see that an alternative word is "dyke". Also, when people click on the spelling "dyke" they will see that it is also known as "dike". This will prevent people from having to go look at www.dictionary.com and wonder if the editors of wikipedia are on crack. There should be no ambiguity.

Sure, but these are disambiguation pages - just pointers to real articles - so we don't need details about spelling and the like. Martin 18:56 26 Jul 2003 (UTC)
Sure, but we need a link, in case someone meant to go to Dike. For example if someone was looking for info about the greek goddess Dike but thought it was spelt Dyke, don't you think we should have a hyperlink so that they can get to where they really want to be? I'm not sure the best way to do this. dave 20:04 26 Jul 2003 (UTC)
I hadn't even considered that possibility! You're quite right Dave - my apologies. :) Martin 00:58 27 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Consolidation

I've remade the 'Dyke' and 'Dike' pages back into a single page (instead of two disambig pages with bad links) is that the intention of disambig pages is to point people to the correct page. Part of this, and especially in this case, is that where there are multiple options on spelling for the same word then it is best practice to bring them together rather than requiring users to click between "see also" links or duplicating the links on each page which will, over time, separate. In this case there were even cases of the same target page having different links from each page rather than the same one! --Vamp:Willow 08:40, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Today's vandalism

I stumbled on the anon vandalism that showed up today (after VampWillow's merge work), and used it as an opportunity to expand the entry for dyke (lesbian) a bit. I have only a weak basis for the very last assertion (Polish origin possbility), but since it refers to a real group of women soldiers from WWII, and is a nearly identical word, it's worth a footnote, I feel. The Celtic origin is widely refered to, so it deserves to go first, possibly with stronger language than I've used to imply that it's more widely regarded. -Harmil 15:23, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

Interesting stuff there about a possible Polish connection! --Vamp:Willow 18:56, 2 August 2005 (UTC) (happy to be a dyke!)
Yeah, Wanda Gertz is one interesting lady! I'd love to see a movie based on her efforts during WWII.... -Harmil 19:26, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Dab cops

Someone came through and decided to hack down the disambiguation entry that I wrote yesterday. Given the volumes upon volumes of disambiguation pages with far more text than I had there, it seems rather odd, but I'll roll with it and re-instate my text on a new page (which I think is redundant, but oh well).

[edit] Dike

Dike is a usage generally found in the USA. In the UK and the Netherlands the spelling 'Dyke' is almost universal, though Fowler suggest's Dike is preferable I've never encountered outside the USA

If you are talking about the excavation here, in my experience, the Dutch spelling is dijk (Cassel's Compact Dutch Dictionary). The modern English spelling in England, is dike. An older English spelling, which seems to have developed in the Middle English period and which is retained in several names, is dyke. The earliest example of the use of dyke, noted by OED, comes from 1340. Occasionally, the dyke spelling is used by modern writers. Going back further, the Old English was díc (Pollington, Wordcraft) from which the southern, soft pronunciation of the c gives the modern ditch and the norhtern, hard pronunciation, the dike. For modern use, the OED gives dike with the alternative of dyke. (RJP 20:40, 8 February 2007 (UTC))