Talk:canteen cup

Tea room discussion

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Should this be added as an entry? Or as a separate sense under canteen or cup? --Panda10 15:08, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

I've never heard of it, but it looks like it's a pretty specific thing, much more than I would have imagined from canteen + cup. So yeah, I'd go with creating it as a separate entry. -- Visviva 15:29, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

I thought that dictionaries in general and Wiktionary in particular are about "words" not "things", as in "all words in all languages".

This seems like attributive use of the noun canteen. I would contrast this to dixie cup and loving cup. If distinctive thinginess is what counts, then we need to adjust cfi more along the lines of an encyclopedic dictionary, lest we include, say, computer monitor and magazine article. DCDuring TALK 16:52, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Not sure I follow... judging from the images -- which are all I have to go on at the moment -- this refers to a particular kind of funny-looking metal cup. How does that follow from the meaning of "canteen"? Is it a cup used at a canteen? Or made from an old canteen? Puzzledly, -- Visviva 17:42, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Now that the entry has been created, I am somewhat less clueless. Still, it's not a canteen, or part of a canteen; it's a cup that is located near and in a unique relationship to the canteen. Since I don't think of canteens as being associated with cups, I would have had no idea what someone writing about a "canteen cup" was referring to. (I probably would have assumed it was one of those little metal mugs that backpackers carry.) -- Visviva 18:08, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

A good dictionary is a book about the "words" for "things", even things that have more than one word in their names. As an example, some languages (polysynthetic) have an infinite number of single-word verbs, the vast majority of which correspond to a complex notion in English (such as "we gave those two dead animals to these beautiful young girl yesterday"), while other languages have rather few simple verbs at all (Chechen, for example, like to make verbs with a noun and the verb дан, to do), so that if only single words are entered, a Chechen dictionary would have few verbs in it. Abstract and concrete "things" should always have entries, even when they take more than one word. Individual words may not always merit an entry because their meanings are too complex (e.g., Spanish explicándoselo, "explaining it to him", or Finnish tottelemattomuudestansa, "because of his lack of obedience", or Ojibwe enihtaagwaashkwebijibii'igeng, "knowing how to write syllabics"). —Stephen 20:44, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Visviva: Then would the rule be that: if any admin didn't get any of the extant meanings of the collocation, then the collocation should be included? I don't see how the considerations you mention are part of the criteria for inclusion. Perhaps they should be.

SGBrown: I can't speak to the best rules inclusion for Chechen Wiktionary, which might well be exactly as you say. Of course we have many entries that for multiple-word units of meaning, for which we have criteria for inclusion. If our essential purpose is to create target entries for other languages, then our criteria for inclusion should definitely be so amended.

Both of these lines of discussion would seem to warrant a BP discussion of the criteria for inclusion. DCDuring TALK 21:23, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

But it's more than a collocation; it's an idiom. If our definition is correct, then it's a specific term with a specific meaning that cannot be guessed from the meanings of its components, even knowing which is the relevant sense for each component. —Ruakh_TALK 22:37, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm slightly bewildered by this turn of discussion. All I'm saying is that this term appears, to me, to meet the fried egg test; it has a meaning that is more specific than the combination of its parts. If that's not the case, our definition is in error. -- Visviva 01:24, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for making explicit the rationale. I think I understand the "fried egg" test. The idiomatic fried egg is a only a subset of eggs that are fried, the SoP meaning of the collocation. I don't see how this applies here. A canteen cup is a cup for a canteen or a cup that accompanies a canteen or a cup that is issued with a canteen. I believe that all and only "canteen cups" fit that and that there is no other extant or even plausible SoP meaning. There may be some other rationale, but I am not convinced of this one. DCDuring TALK 04:46, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

FWIW, I interpreted “canteen cup” to mean something synonymous with “cafeteria cup”. † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 15:28, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Fair enough. I have only a quick scan of Google Images (and Books) to go on, but all of the images seem to depict the same type of cup -- which, not being a military person, I can't recall having seen before. The Books hits generally seemed consistent with the images, though it's hard to be sure; they are also overwhelmingly military in nature. Many Books hits use "canteen cup" independent of any reference to a canteen, e.g. [1], which suggests they are referring to a specific, known type of cup. I would be interested to know if there are cases of canteen cup used to refer to some other type of canteen-associated cup, such as a hiking mug (or whatever you call those things). -- Visviva 05:48, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

The context of use plus the meanings of the component words provides the definition in the usage I have looked at. All the usage that I looked at was military/outdoorsy and in no way depended on any specific aspect of cup design (except that it be fire-resistant and plausibly present in the setting). If one didn't know what a canteen was or expected another type of canteen, one would be quickly set on the right path by looking up canteen. I would would have thought that this would be deemed encyclopedic except for its triviality. DCDuring TALK 17:22, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

How can you tell that in the citation above the writer wasn't referring to a cup he took from the canteen (cafeteria) down the road, or a plastic cup he keeps in his canteen (compartmented box), or a ceramic mug he packs in a bag next to his canteen (water bottle)? How can you tell that he's referring to a cup designed to nest with his water bottle and fit into a purpose-made pouch on his military web gear? —Michael Z. 2009-01-20 19:27 z

If such specificity were required, we would be hard-pressed indeed to find attestation citations that confirmed that the specific definition of "canteen cup" in fact corresponded to the "canteen cup" in the citation. In the fifty or so citations I looked at, there was nothing much that would have precluded any of the meanings except plausibility: ceramics in combat?, plastics in a fire?, "canteen" (vs. "mess" or "field kitchen") in a combat environment?. There was nothing in any of the citations (except for congressional testimony about a redesign of the canteen/cup system) where the specifics of the design in any way mattered. US military designs probably differ from those of other militaries, from civilian models, and designs differ by era. The constant element is that the cup is designed to suitable for use with and in the same conditions as the canteen it accompanies.

I suppose that, in an adversarial setting, a speaker or writer might try to mislead one about the meaning. But speech is normally more cooperative, so it is left for punning humorists to play against our usually legitimate and rarely disappointed linguistic expectations. DCDuring TALK 21:39, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Hm. I don't think these things are self-evident, and the job of the definition is to make them explicit. But I suppose to do a thorough job, we ought to find attestations which do prove these relationships. I really can't prove that canteen cup is not etymologically related to the canteen (mess kit) or canteen (field kitchen).

But also don't make any unjustified assumptions. Soldiers do carry other cups around in the field, including plastic (melmac) cups and plates they've been issued, and ceramic cups hoisted from a base mess. The Squadron Sergeant Major does set up a canteen (snack shop, not mess or kitchen) in the back of a truck where the men can buy chips, coke, and possibly beer during field operations. And, at least to me, a canteen cup is designed so that one can use it to eat a whole meal out of, when he has lost or broken his issue plate. Don't know if the dictionary should agree, as this is all from my own experience.

And I suppose a civilian camper can carry a tin cup or a canteen cup.

I should look over more attestations. Did you use books.G.c, or other sources too? —Michael Z. 2009-01-20 23:45 z

I always start with b.g.c. because it provides high-quality text with plenty of context (as opposed to Usenet) with no disappointment due to need for a subscription (Scholar and News). I really wish we had less debatable "rules" with respect to includable noun phrases. Many of the "easings" lead to way too much inclusion. DCDuring TALK 00:27, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Most of the photos show the US style of canteen cup. There are at least a few other kinds: similar designs,[2][3] German ones in which the cup nests on top,[4][5] and at least one non-military imitation.[6] It is a cup specifically made to fit the canteen, and is part of the kit including canteen, cup, and holder for the web belt. If I took a cup from my kitchen and stuck it in with the canteen, it still wouldn't be a canteen cup (although I may call it my “canteen cup”, quotation marks sic).

Perhaps this needs a (military) or (camping) context label. If you say “canteen cup” to a North American soldier, outdoorsman, or boy scout, he will have a very specific image in his head. —Michael Z. 2009-01-19 15:29 z

I added the context labels and the second sense. Please correct if needed. Thanks. --Panda10 15:39, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that these are two different senses. These are the main groups I can think of who would use the term, perhaps also including hunters, rangers, etc; anyone who spends time living in the field. —Michael Z. 2009-01-20 16:18 z

Interesting, after scanning the first few results pages in Google books, I notice that a significant number refer to the cup's capacity: including recipes, estimations of water for sustenance, etc. One German culinary dictionary even provides a measurement: “canteen cup US = 710 ml (Kükchenmaß)” (1.5 pints).[7] I don't know if this is prominent enough to add a sense, but I suppose the name of any standard container is also a measure of what it holds.

Is canteen cup only an American (and Canadian) usage? I didn't notice any which were obviously British. —Michael Z. 2009-01-22 23:16 z

Now that this is becoming a life-or-death matter, perhaps we need the "canteen cup" entry for a UK user who, stranded in the desert, with his netbook's last bit of battery life connects wirelessly to Wiktionary to help decipher the potentially life-saving note left by a US soldier in North Africa that he has just discovered which measures everything in canteen cups. One can only hope that a German cookbook author is using a captured vintage American canteen of the same specification. DCDuring TALK 01:19, 23 January 2009 (UTC)