Talk:acquired characteristic

RFD discussion: November 2023–October 2024

The following discussion has been moved from Wiktionary:Requests for deletion (permalink).

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acquired characteristic

SOP: "a characteristic that is acquired (i.e. "Developed after birth; not congenital")". PUC – 17:34, 2 November 2023 (UTC)

• Keep. According to the Wikipedia article, "Applying makeup, nail polish, dying one's hair, applying henna to the skin, and tooth whitening are not examples of acquired traits" (which is a synonym according to the same article). However, if a celebrity does their hair and makeup in a particular way, that can be said to be acquired + a characteristic, but not an acquired characteristic. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 23:36, 3 November 2023 (UTC)
  • I think you're suggesting this should be kept per WT:FRIED. — excarnateSojourner (talk · contrib) 00:48, 2 December 2023 (UTC)
• Delete as SoP. — Sgconlaw (talk) 04:54, 7 November 2023 (UTC)
• Keep. Strongly a fixed phrase describing concept in biology / evolutionary science. Mihia (talk) 14:30, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

@Mihia: What makes it more deserving of an entry than acquired trait? PUC – 16:48, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

We could have that too, listed as a synonym. Mihia (talk) 19:20, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

@Mihia: inherited trait (and inherited characteristic), vestigial trait, advanced trait, recessive trait, dominant trait, adaptive trait, are all phrases describing concepts in evolutionary biology. I don't see the point of creating entries for these, since they will be a rehash of what can be found in the entries of the component words. PUC – 16:12, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

Each of those would need to be considered on its own merits. However, one difference between "acquired characteristic" and, let's say, "inherited characteristic", is that it is relatively obvious that "inherited characteristic" has something to do with characteristics passed to offspring, but less obvious that "acquired characteristic" does. If you mentioned the latter phrase to someone not familiar with the subject area, quite possibly they would not understand just from the parts the specific sense that it has in that regard. This is a reason to keep it, in my opinion. More generally speaking, I feel less inclined nowadays to delete phrases purely because the meaning can in theory be obtained by selecting the right combination of senses of the different parts, and more inclined to keep strong set phrases anyway -- within reason, of course, which is a subjective judgement. Mihia (talk) 20:36, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

No consensus to delete. bd2412 T 18:38, 9 October 2024 (UTC)