Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2018 June 23

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June 23

Potable

"Potable" means "Good for drinking without fear of poisoning or disease". I know of no other meaning, and neither does Wiktionary.

In Lytton Strachey's Eminent Victorians in the section on Thomas Arnold I came across this:

• To be rebuked, however mildly, by Dr Arnold was a Potable experience.

The P is capitalised in my edition (Readaclassic), but I have to say it looks like the whole text has been scanned from some older edition, as there are a few obvious glitches that Strachey would never have intended. So, assuming "Potable" is not such a glitch, what could Strachey have meant here? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 12:42, 23 June 2018 (UTC)

• Stop the presses. I've checked the text online here, and I see it was a typo for "notable". You may resume your appointed tasks. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 13:01, 23 June 2018 (UTC)

Or it was an experience that did not cause gastrointestinal distress. Bus stop (talk) 13:20, 23 June 2018 (UTC)

From my experience with Project Gutenberg, scanned text, particularly of older works, has glitches, and even two or three rounds of proofreading by different readers will not necessarily catch them all. - Donald Albury 13:31, 23 June 2018 (UTC)

Actually, "potable experience" sounded creatively okay to me, in the sense of "easy to swallow". Clarityfiend (talk) 22:06, 23 June 2018 (UTC)

The OED has a few more meanings for "potable". As an adjective it may also mean "Related to drinking, intoxicated", and as a plural noun potables - "Drinkable substances; beverages; liquor". DuncanHill (talk) 22:12, 23 June 2018 (UTC)

Of course there is also the other possibility that the water was really portable. Bus stop (talk) 02:34, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

"Potent potables" is a recurring category on Jeopardy! (as in alcoholic beverages) ... just found another WHAAOE link —2606:A000:1126:4CA:0:98F2:CFF6:1782 (talk) 04:37, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

"Potable" and "potion" are cognates.[1][2] ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:30, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

And poison. —Tamfang (talk) 07:32, 28 June 2018 (UTC)

What is this game called?

Someone offers a sentence with head-scratching anomaly, probably a typo or scan artifact. Others try to solve it. Some attempt to puzzle out or intuit for the original, with the benefit that it can be checked, eventually. Others reach for maximum creativity, and explain what the sentence could then possibly mean. What is this game called? I propose potable-notable. Carbon Caryatid (talk) 18:53, 23 June 2018 (UTC)

:) -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 00:22, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

How about "Covfefe Carousel"? —2606:A000:1126:4CA:0:98F2:CFF6:1782 (talk) 01:12, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

Related is Mumpsimus... AnonMoos (talk) 03:08, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

Conjectural emendation. There's a discussion of it here. --Antiquary (talk) 09:35, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

A user named Doug Coldwell used to flood the RD with games like that many years ago... Adam Bishop (talk) 02:09, 26 June 2018 (UTC)