Talk:Toshiba

why delete its a proper noun maybe the def could be reformatted a little better but i dont see why deleted? --72.73.69.10 16:39, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

We usually don't include company names. See WT:CFI#Company names -- Prince Kassad 16:41, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

ohhh.... sorry then --72.73.69.10 16:42, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

RFV discussion: July 2014–July 2015

See Talk:Motorola#RFV discussion: July 2014–July 2015.

RFV discussion: July 2015

The following discussion has been moved from Wiktionary:Requests for verification (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.

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Toshiba

An editor recently RFV-failed Toshiba despite the term's being in widespear use. Apparently, the editor applied WT:BRAND to that company name. I disagree with applying WT:BRAND to company names as opposed to products or services, but let us play that game since that seems to be the best chance, for the time being.

I placed quotations that seem to meet WT:BRAND at Citations:Toshiba. Please comment on how good they are for WT:BRAND; if some of them are good and some not, I'll try to find more good ones. --Dan Polansky (talk) 20:39, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

It's worth noting that what was deleted was a proper noun defined as "a company", whereas your citations are of a countable common noun meaning "a computer". Thanks for finding those citations, though — as I noted, I did try to find common-noun uses, and wasn't able to (the first several pages of "Toshibas", "on his Toshiba", "on her Toshiba", etc that I looked at all explained what they were, namely laptops/notebooks or in some cases other equipment). I'll "restore" the entry (but with the common-noun definition you've attested, not the proper-noun one that failed RFV). - -sche (discuss) 21:23, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

Similar to Atari or Nintendo. Looks better to me now, as an opposer of company names as dictionary entries (unless they have some further sense like kleenex or xerox). I know there are arguments for including transliterations and etymologies, but if there isn't a real definition beyond "a company" then it just seems silly to me. Other dicts don't seem to include them; I doubt this is purely for the NOTPAPER reasons. Equinox ◑ 21:59, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

@Equinox: Other dicts seem to have a very limited coverage of names of specific entities in general, as apparent e.g. from “Aristaeus”, in OneLook Dictionary Search. (a god), “Framlingham”, in OneLook Dictionary Search. (village or town), or “Botein”, in OneLook Dictionary Search. (a star); but there is some coverage, e.g. “Odin”, in OneLook Dictionary Search., “Liverpool”, in OneLook Dictionary Search., and “Betelgeuse”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.. It can be admitted that the dicts shy away from company names wholesale, unlike for gods, cities and stars, but we don't know the reasons; it could be for being considered ephemeral or connected with commerce, which would be considered bad. I only see practical reasons (limits on paper but also on editors to curate the material), not lexicographical ones, to remove all companies from the dictionary. --Dan Polansky (talk) 10:35, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

@-sche: Can you point me to a citations attesting a company sense, for any company? --Dan Polansky (talk) 22:20, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

Company names fall under WT:COMPANY and not WT:BRAND. And that says: "Being a company name does not guarantee inclusion. To be included, the use of the company name other than its use as a trademark (i.e., a use as a common word or family name) has to be attested." -- Liliana • 22:29, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

@Liliana: Great. Now, can you point me to citations attesting a company sense to meet the quoted WT:COMPANY, for any company? --Dan Polansky (talk) 22:46, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

I can't, because a company sense cannot possibly meet CFI in any shape or form, which is already implied by the wording. -- Liliana • 12:53, 25 July 2015 (UTC)

@Liliana: The regulator says "To be included, ...". Do you suggest that the regulator, rather than saying "no definition line for a company name can be included", chose to suggest a criterion that cannot be met? Is my impression correct that this RFV and the previous ones are fake as for being RFV since no verification is actually requested, but rather, the RFV process is used instead of RFD so that the outcome is apparenty driven by WT:ATTEST (which it obviouly is not) and so that the nominator and his or her allies can delete content without consensus? --Dan Polansky (talk) 13:06, 25 July 2015 (UTC)

Well you asked specifically for a company sense. Obviously, the name of a company can have an entry if it has a meaning other than "name of a company". Samsung, for example, doesn't meet WT:COMPANY right now, its sole sense (in the proper noun section) is "name of a company". -- Liliana • 14:07, 25 July 2015 (UTC)

@Liliana: I think I see what your understanding is of WT:COMPANY: WT:COMPANY has as a necessary consequence that no company can ever have a sense line. It follows that RFV-sense on a sense line for a company never makes sense since there is no way quotations could be provided so that the sense can be kept. However, the whole entry (as opposed to sense) can still be RFV-ed to see whether a non-company sense can be added to it. Please, correct me if I'm wrong. --Dan Polansky (talk) 14:19, 25 July 2015 (UTC)

Yes, that's basically what I'm trying to say. -- Liliana • 14:49, 25 July 2015 (UTC)

@Liliana: When the entry in which a company sense was located is kept in RFV, can a company sense fail RFV? --Dan Polansky (talk) 10:10, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

The company sense would be RFD matter in this case. It's obviously attestable, but just plain doesn't meet CFI. -- Liliana • 11:05, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

I hope to clarify this: Wiktionary:Votes/pl-2015-07/Clarify exclusion of companies. DAVilla 05:59, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

I let Samsung pass based on the citations I found for it (perhaps I shouldn't have — the ones which don't mention that it's a company in the quoted snippets probably do somewhere on the same page — but I was persuaded by the plural usage in reference to companies which are not the original Samsung but rather companies as successful as it, as in "Samsungs of tomorrow" and "[the country needs to have] its own Samsungs"). - -sche (discuss) 22:33, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

@-sche: Is this a policy you made up on the fly or is it based on WT:CFI or, verifiably, on previous practice in relation to company names? Or, ideally, can it be traced to a discussion or a vote that we should be seeking these sort of quotations that you provided that are reminiscent of the attributive-use rule that got shot down in Wiktionary:Votes/pl-2010-05/Names of specific entities? --Dan Polansky (talk) 22:45, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

In light of the general disagreement over whether or not company names should be included, I decided to err on the side of inclusion and assume that, because (I thought at the time) company names as such generally by definition name specific companies and don't pluralize, the plural citations I found of "Samsungs of tomorrow" etc might constituted "use of the company name other than its use as a trademark (i.e., a use as a common word[)]". (I left the "proper noun" header in spite of the pluralization, because plenty of proper nouns pluralize — indeed, more of them pluralize than don't, because personal names which do pluralize outnumber every other kind of proper noun we include.) However, I notice from google books:"Berkshire Hathaways" that pluralization and "referential" use may be a general ability of company names, as of other kinds of words — "the Putins [=Russian leaders, probably with an emphasis on cult of personality and undemocratic governance style] of tomorrow", "the next Iraq [=quagmire the US invades on flimsy pretexts and then gets bogged down and creates bigger ISIS-like enemies in]", etc. Perhaps, as Liliana suggests, Samsung#Proper_noun should go to RFD. - -sche (discuss) 18:06, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

As for Atari, the nomination on Talk:Atari says 'RFV-sense: do citations of the sense "a company" which meet COMPANY and BRAND exist?'? How can a company meet WT:BRAND and why should it, given that WT:BRAND regulate senses for products or services, not for companies? And why should a sense for a company meet both WT:COMPANY and WT:BRAND? How much more fishy can this get? --Dan Polansky (talk) 13:11, 25 July 2015 (UTC)

"All words in all languages" is so much easier to understand. SemperBlotto (talk) 14:51, 25 July 2015 (UTC)

You're right. And it's very clear that Toshiba is a word. Nonetheless, it's normal to define a special rule for company names or trademarks, because anybody can make "official" any sequence of characters by creating a company or registering a trademark, even if nobody uses this "word". This is why a first rule in these cases should be: at least n citations, excluding uses by the company itself or people related to it. The 2nd rule should answer the question should the name or the trademark be considered as a word worth an entry (= of linguistic interest)?. For IBM or Toshiba, the answer is easy (yes). For International Business Machines or Syspark Inc., I think the answer should be no, because nothing of a linguistic interest can be written about these complete names. Lmaltier (talk) 18:09, 27 July 2015 (UTC)