Category talk:Toiletries
Latest comment: 6 years ago by Donnanz in topic RFM discussion: November 2017
The following discussion has been moved from Wiktionary:Requests for moves, mergers and splits (permalink).
This discussion is no longer live and is left here as an archive. Please do not modify this conversation, but feel free to discuss its conclusions.
The title of this category strikes me as being a little odd. "Toiletries" would be better, I think. DonnanZ (talk) 11:23, 2 November 2017 (UTC)
- This must be for toiletry "the art, craft, or practice of using a toilet" or "of performing ones toilet", not for Category:Toiletries. DCDuring (talk) 13:58, 2 November 2017 (UTC)
- Are all the terms in these categories actually toiletry items? Or are they merely related to toiletry? —Rua (mew) 14:34, 2 November 2017 (UTC)
- None of the terms in Category:en:Toiletry relate to using a toilet, apart from toilet paper, which of course can be used for other purposes, such as blowing your nose. DonnanZ (talk) 15:14, 2 November 2017 (UTC)
- What does toiletry have to do with using a toilet? —Rua (mew) 17:40, 5 November 2017 (UTC)
- As I've said before, we're dealing with euphemisms, and euphemisms require a shared knowledge of the hidden subtext that's easily lost. A water closet is not a closet, a toilet has nothing to do with toiletry, and most people don't go to a bathroom or a lavatory to take a bath or wash their hands. It's not surprising that people get things wrong.
- See the discussion at #Category:WC above. Everything in this part of the category tree is seriously confused, with architecture, feces and cosmetics all jumbled together conceptually. It's exactly the kind of subtle nonsense a vandal would try to slip in without anyone noticing, but this was done in all sincerity by otherwise-competent regular editors.
- The problem is that it's easy to show how wrong it is, but no one has spent the time to work out what to replace it with, so the discussion went nowhere. Chuck Entz (talk) 04:33, 6 November 2017 (UTC)
- I think there is a dividing line between toiletries and cosmetics though. I would class shaving gel and body lotion as toiletries, and things like nail varnish and kohl pencils as cosmetics. Does it need someone to take the bull by the horns and sort this out? Do we rename the category or not? BTW, in Britain we go to the loo, whether it's in a bathroom or not. The term WC is rather old-fashioned now. DonnanZ (talk) 18:10, 6 November 2017 (UTC)
- Category:Hygiene items? —Rua (mew) 18:44, 6 November 2017 (UTC)
- Which could be construed as containing soap, washcloth and douche. I think we're better off keeping toiletry, but restricting it to the definition one would expect, then finding a better name for a category on the topic of things that receive bodily waste and send it to the sewer, and, finally, find/make places in the category tree to put all of the above in so we don't have perfume, feces and architecture all in the same branch of the tree. Chuck Entz (talk) 04:12, 7 November 2017 (UTC)
- "Restricting it to the definition one would expect" is best achieved by renaming it "Toiletries". That should be unambiguous. There aren't very many entries that would need to be amended in any of the languages. DonnanZ (talk) 10:41, 7 November 2017 (UTC)
- That would be a good first step (we should use plurals wherever possible, anyway). I'm just worried this will fade into the background again and the rest of this embarrassment will hang around for years more. Chuck Entz (talk) 14:43, 7 November 2017 (UTC)
- Created the module and Category:Toiletries. Category:Toiletry can be removed later once subcategories are created and entries amended. DonnanZ (talk) 22:35, 7 November 2017 (UTC)
- That would be a good first step (we should use plurals wherever possible, anyway). I'm just worried this will fade into the background again and the rest of this embarrassment will hang around for years more. Chuck Entz (talk) 14:43, 7 November 2017 (UTC)
- "Restricting it to the definition one would expect" is best achieved by renaming it "Toiletries". That should be unambiguous. There aren't very many entries that would need to be amended in any of the languages. DonnanZ (talk) 10:41, 7 November 2017 (UTC)
- Which could be construed as containing soap, washcloth and douche. I think we're better off keeping toiletry, but restricting it to the definition one would expect, then finding a better name for a category on the topic of things that receive bodily waste and send it to the sewer, and, finally, find/make places in the category tree to put all of the above in so we don't have perfume, feces and architecture all in the same branch of the tree. Chuck Entz (talk) 04:12, 7 November 2017 (UTC)
- Category:Hygiene items? —Rua (mew) 18:44, 6 November 2017 (UTC)
- I think there is a dividing line between toiletries and cosmetics though. I would class shaving gel and body lotion as toiletries, and things like nail varnish and kohl pencils as cosmetics. Does it need someone to take the bull by the horns and sort this out? Do we rename the category or not? BTW, in Britain we go to the loo, whether it's in a bathroom or not. The term WC is rather old-fashioned now. DonnanZ (talk) 18:10, 6 November 2017 (UTC)
- What does toiletry have to do with using a toilet? —Rua (mew) 17:40, 5 November 2017 (UTC)
- None of the terms in Category:en:Toiletry relate to using a toilet, apart from toilet paper, which of course can be used for other purposes, such as blowing your nose. DonnanZ (talk) 15:14, 2 November 2017 (UTC)