Talk:dry eye

Tea room discussion

Note: the below discussion was moved from the Wiktionary:Tea room.

Is there scope for an entry like not a dry eye or to not be a dry eye, because it is quite a common expression e.g. in "there wasn't a dry eye in the theatre, because she made such an emotional performance." (i.e. everybody was weeping). I started one up at dry eye, but it could do with improvement. --Jackofclubs 18:26, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

It is a troublesome variable expression. ("-n't" or "not" or "not [verb phrase]" or "scarcely" or "hardly", etc.) ("a dry eye in the") ("house" or "theater" or "room", etc.). There are also forms with the plural "dry eyes". Usage notes and examples of the main variants at dry eye might be the best we can do. DCDuring TALK 12:28, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes, it seems to be a negative polarity item. —Ruakh_TALK 15:23, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

I wonder whether that concept would be helpful in cleaning up some of our entries that include the word "not", though other negative words are commonly substituted. DCDuring TALK 17:02, 28 September 2008 (UTC)