Talk:Alicorn

Winged Unicorns

Okay, so, I haven't got any... erm... I'm not quite familiar with all the Wikipedian terminology. They're called "reliable" sources, right? Well, I haven't got any of those (yet), but, in the few other places I've seen the subject addressed, it's been treated as incorrect (or, at the very least, confusing in a bad way) usage of the word "alicorn" to refer to a unicorn with wings, and that it is a modern invention. On the other hand, I've got no idea what processes a word has to go through for an "incorrect" usage to, objectively, become "correct", aside from such pervasive and constant misuse that the general populace doesn't know or care anymore.

Frankly, though, it's just bad form to take a word that means something in a certain context (in this case, specifically, "alicorn" meaning "a unicorn's horn" in the context of "fantastic equines"), and then start using it as a Humpty-Dumptyism for something else (in this case, "a unicorn with wings on") in the same context as the original definition. Languages are meant to facilitate communication, and adding "new" definitions to a word that already has one in the field you're applying to is counterproductive.Pigcatapult (talk) 21:41, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, Piers Anthony is the only one to use the term in this way; should it be on the page at all without a solid citation? Thomblake (talk) 21:37, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

Many people use the term this way (in fact, a Google image search suggests that this usage is far more common than the traditional usage), so it would be a disservice to readers not to mention it at all. Even if Piers Anthony is the only notable person to use the term this way, we could still cite one of his books as a reference. --Zundark (talk) 21:54, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

I've removed the assertion that the usage is correct, since this is certainly disputed (and I don't really know what it would mean for the usage to be "correct" or "incorrect" anyway). --Zundark (talk) 22:13, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Thankies. I'm new at this. ^_^;; Pigcatapult (talk) 00:10, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

In Our Time

In our time this morning discussed the mythology of unicorns. Alicorn (as a historical medicine) came up:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00vhfdf —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.232.250.50 (talk) 09:02, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

This is why I think Wikipedia is pretty much useless

No matter what the Ministry of Truth (Wiki editors) may say you cannot erase the fact that this is a part of our pop culture and deserves at least a mention. This is like erasing any mention of building demolition from the entry "Implosion" just because it's not technically correct.

Check the following link for their definition of Alicorn. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.27.167.139 (talk) 02:00, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

http://en.wikifur.com/wiki/Alicorn —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.27.167.139 (talk) 01:38, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Wikifur is another wiki, and one with far less stringent standards of reliability than Wikipedia itself even. It's not really usable as a reliable source. Check out that article for some discussion of this matter. Bryan Derksen (talk) 14:47, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Is this a disambiguation page or a stub?

While this page refers to two possible uses of the same word, it doesn't look like any disambiguation pages I've seen before, which generally act as lists of topics that a term may refer to. It seems more like stub articles I've encountered before. It seems to me this should be marked as a stub, but I would like to hear thoughts on this. TornadoLGS (talk) 20:44, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

Looks like a stub to me as well. It either needs to be marked as a stub or it needs a major adjustment (as far as formatting goes). United States Man (talk) 02:54, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

So marked. ~ Röbin Liönheart (talk) 03:04, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

Thank you. I took out the wikiproject that this page was classified in, but I can't find another project to put in. Does it need one anyway? United States Man (talk) 03:11, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

Since it's so sparse on information and is mostly reliant on original research, I'm turning it into a disambiguation page. IsaacAA (talk) 05:51, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

Wonderful! Works a lot better as a disambiguation than a redirect. --Yellow1996 (talk) 00:20, 16 June 2013 (UTC)