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I read a lot. I occasionally see "oaken" used to describe something made out of oak. It's used more frequently in historical or romantic fiction. Does common usage make it right?

Penny Hammack
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    What really is the problem here? http://www.encyclo.co.uk/define/Oaken http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/english/oak?q=oaken#oak__18 http://www.thefreedictionary.com/oaken – Kris Sep 13 '14 at 08:11

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Of course it does. That's what makes a term right -- a general consensus that it's OK to use a particular term in a particular way, as demonstrated by people's actual linguistic practice.

In other words, usage (not ex-cathedra pronouncements and prescriptions from academicians and self-appointed 'experts') is the ultimate arbiter of rightness.

Getting back to 'oaken':

"The -en suffix is used to form adjectives of source or material from nouns, e.g. ashen, golden, oaken."

(Explanation of -en from The Random House Dictionary of the English Language, 1993.)

Erik Kowal
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  • Yes. Thorin Oakshield just wouldn't sound right. (But please, Erik, put in a caveat like 'The point of productivity is not that you can [eg] add a suffix to any word you please, but that [one] can be added to some words to create new words.' [ Cerberus] before we start seeing and arguing about hawthornen, sycamoren, gingkoen, firen, platinumen, chromiumen ...) – Edwin Ashworth Sep 13 '14 at 07:05
  • @EdwinAshworth - I think you really meant to write ginkgoen. ;) – Erik Kowal Sep 13 '14 at 07:16
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    See what I mean :-( (The spell-checker rejected 'gingkoen' quite satisfactorily.) But yes, the non-word I actually intended was of course ginkgoen ;-) – Edwin Ashworth Sep 13 '14 at 07:26
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    Here's a tip, because there are a few users who foam at the mouth when it comes to hyphens substituting dashes. On keyboard, press ALT and then 0151 on the number pad and voila! — a proper dash— this works on Microsoft though. – Mari-Lou A Sep 13 '14 at 07:44
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    @ Mari-Lou A I prefer the dashes that automatically occur at the end of all comments, and I copy and paste. If there's no comment around, I put in a temporary one (usually about 20 z's). But then I can't spell ginkgo. – Edwin Ashworth Sep 13 '14 at 07:58
  • In Dutch it's eiken. And eik is only referring to the tree. – the Sep 13 '14 at 08:01
  • A ginkgo by any other name ... ... might be a ceanothus. – Edwin Ashworth Sep 13 '14 at 08:38
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    @Mari-LouA — Thanks for the tip — but I have to make a dash for it now — – Erik Kowal Sep 13 '14 at 08:57
  • @Edwin For the en dash, you can substitute 0150 for 0151. In Microsoft Office programs, you can also hold down Ctrl and hit the dash key on the numeric keypad; that makes a ‘–’ more easily. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Sep 13 '14 at 09:35
  • ELU's editor already has "–" "—" in addition to the usual hyphen. – Kris Sep 14 '14 at 05:46