Talk:Burelage
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Accent[edit]
No accent on the "e" of burelage in French. A literary reference. Sebjarod (talk) 20:55, 21 July 2009 (UTC)
- And a funny other: James Mackay, Philatelic Terms Illustrated, Stanley Gibbons, 3rd edition, 1987, page 18: entry is "burélage" but the definition contains three uses of the word "burelage". Would be interesting to know the name of the first author who put an accent there and how popular he went. Sebjarod (talk) 20:59, 21 July 2009 (UTC)
- This is a really good question. I have searched Google Books and I have found no uses of "burélage" with the accent. The many uses of the word I did find there had no accent. Carleton, in his "International Encyclopaedic Dictionary of Philately", Wisonsin, 1997, does have the accent, as you note did Mackay (1987). Curiously, burelé does appear in Earée, first ed. c. 1882 (who might be prejudiced in favor of accents). But why would the last "e" in burelé have an accent and the first "e" in burélage? Is it possible that English speakers incorrectly inserted an accent (to Frenchify the word?) where one does not exist in the French word?
- The word is not in the Oxford English Dictionary (on line). Perhaps we should treat the non-accented spelling as the basic one, with the accented one as alternative? Ecphora (talk) 00:13, 22 July 2009 (UTC)
- That is really a lexical enigma. The [http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_b?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=Stamp+Collector%27s+by+R.+J.+Sutton Sutton's Stamp Collector's Encyclopaedia] first published in 1951 (I have the sixth edition of 1966 revised by K. W. Anthony) mandated the "Frenchified" spelling: "Burélage, Burelé". Others, like [http://www.amazon.com/All-About-Stamps-Illustrated-Encyclopedia/dp/0873419634 Wayne Youngblood's Illustrated Encyclopedia of Philatelic Terms] (2000), don't use an accent in Burelage. The French only sector of the Internet shows 22,800 French pages for burelage vs. 268 French pages for Burélage as well as 13,300 French pages for Burelé vs. 4,460 French pages for Burele. So, I would follow Burelage & Burelé. --Michael Romanov (talk) 05:28, 24 July 2009 (UTC)
I moved the article to "Burelage" without an accent and added a comment regarding the spelling. Ecphora (talk) 12:00, 5 August 2009 (UTC)