Talk:ex-chancellor

RFD discussion: October 2022–January 2023

The following discussion has been moved from Wiktionary:Requests for deletion (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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ex-chancellor

ex-minister

ex-Communist

WT:SOP: "An expression is idiomatic if its full meaning cannot be easily derived from the meaning of its separate components. Non-idiomatic expressions are called sum-of-parts (SOP).". ex-chancellor is an expression whose full meaning (former chancellor) can easily be derived from its separate components (ex- and chancellor). An English learner knows exactly what to look up when they encounter ex-chancellor thanks to the hyphen. Also, you can be ex- almost anything. Compare Talk:ex-Christian. — Fytcha〈 T | L | C 〉 13:35, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

Agnostic personally, but there are a large number of other articles in ex- that ought to be handled consistently, barring some special reason (ex-serviceman, ex-friend, ex-minister, ex-Communist, as a random sample). —Al-Muqanna المقنع (talk) 13:55, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

@Al-Muqanna: Yes, I agree, these should be handled consistently (which means they should be deleted, see Talk:ex-Christian). I've added two more terms to this nomination. ex-serviceman is saved by THUB, ex-friend by coalmine. — Fytcha〈 T | L | C 〉 13:59, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

Keep. ex-chancellor, ex-minister, and ex-Communist are single words, and affixes shouldn't be seen as distinct "parts" since they can't exist on their own. It doesn't make sense for our rules against hyphenated compounds to apply to entries that aren't compounds to begin with.

I'd also like to note that ex- is a bit unique among English prefixes in that it almost always requires a hyphen. By treating it as a separate component, we've drastically limited its coverage compared to other common prefixes. Compare Category:English terms prefixed with ex- (92 entries) to Category:English terms prefixed with pre- (2,787 entries), Category:English terms prefixed with anti- (3,552 entries) or Category:English terms prefixed with non- (10,005 entries). Our coverage would lead readers to believe that ex- is a rare prefix, when in reality we've just been forced to ignore the overwhelming majority of words that use it. Binarystep (talk) 14:09, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

ex-chancellor, ex-minister, and ex-Communist are single words - Irrelevant, WT:SOP talks about expressions. They are expressions.

and affixes shouldn't be seen as distinct "parts" since they can't exist on their own - Patently false. People refer to bound morphemes as "parts" all the time: [1], [2] — Fytcha〈 T | L | C 〉 14:16, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

Irrelevant, WT:SOP talks about expressions. They are expressions.

And WT:CFI talks about single words being distinct from idiomatic phrases, so our policies don't seem to agree with each other. Either way, what matters here is that we've effectively banned one of the most common prefixes in English. That doesn't benefit us or our readers.

Patently false. People refer to bound morphemes as "parts" all the time: [81], [82]

Irrelevant. The fact that bound morphemes are identifiable units doesn't make them "parts" in the specific sense of a word being SOP. red door is SOP because it refers to a door that is red. On the other hand, a non-Catholic isn't a Catholic who is non. Binarystep (talk) 14:31, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

And WT:CFI talks about single words being distinct from idiomatic phrases, so our policies don't seem to agree with each other. Either way, what matters here is that we've effectively banned one of the most common prefixes in English. That doesn't benefit us or our readers. - I agree that some of the other text in CFI (not SOP!) needs revision in this regard. I disagree that including ex- SOPs benefits our readers in any way. I would argue that banning such entries is what benefits our readers because that way editors are not wasting their time on redundant entries that could better be invested in adding novel information by documenting non-SOPs.

red door is SOP because it refers to a door that is red. On the other hand, a non-Catholic isn't a Catholic who is non. - This is completely off the mark. WT:SOP states that the meaning has to not be easily derived. The meaning of non-Catholic is easily derived from the definitions given in non- and Catholic. It doesn't matter that it doesn't follow the pattern of "X that is Y". — Fytcha〈 T | L | C 〉 14:50, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

I disagree that including ex- SOPs benefits our readers in any way.

How doesn't it? Readers benefit from more complete coverage. Even if you disagree, it's not like including these entries would harm our readers either.

I would argue that banning such entries is what benefits our readers because that way editors are not wasting their time on redundant entries that could better be invested in adding novel information by documenting non-SOPs.

It's not like editors are being forced to create prefixed entries at gunpoint. Most people will continue to add unique entries, while users who want to fill out Category:English terms prefixed with ex- won't be blocked from doing so.

This is completely off the mark. WT:SOP states that the meaning has to not be easily derived. The meaning of non-Catholic is easily derived from the definitions given in non- and Catholic. It doesn't matter that it doesn't follow the pattern of "X that is Y".

At that point, you might as well just delete all prefixed entries regardless of hyphenation. It's certainly easy to figure out the meaning of a word like nonaccompanying. Binarystep (talk) 01:35, 28 October 2022 (UTC)

• Keep as single words, per WT:CFI, "including a term if it is attested and, when that is met, if it is a single word or it is idiomatic". Thus, for single words, the section on idiomaticity does not get invoked in the first place. There is more at Wiktionary:Beer parlour/2022/September#Including hyphenated prefixed words as single words. And all three items are protected by the spirit of WT:THUB: the translations are in the entries. From the linked long post, I will quote examples included: non-smoker, non-African, non-Japanese, non-standard, non-toxic, anti-alcoholic, anti-aircraft, anti-American, anti-European, anti-immigrant, anti-imperialist, anti-Jewish, anti-Putinism, anti-racist, multi-cellular, multi-directional, multi-owner, multi-paradigm, multi-player, multi-wavelength, multi-word, post-war, post-Soviet, pre-Socratic, pre-Soviet, pre-war, pro-government, re-add, re-dye, re-sort, un-English. --Dan Polansky (talk) 16:04, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

  As explained in Wiktionary:Beer_parlour/2022/October#non-French, I don't think that the sentence you've quoted shortcuts the entire CFI for attested single words. It is obvious that, for instance, the rare misspelling, typo and proper noun sections of CFI also apply to single words, so why do you think that WT:SOP, another section of CFI, suddenly doesn't apply to single words, especially considering that WT:SOP is written with language that makes it perfectly applicable to single words? — Fytcha〈 T | L | C 〉 00:41, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

  To my mind, "if it is a single word or it is idiomatic" explicitly "shortcuts" idiomaticity, while it does not explicitly shortcut the misspelling and proper noun sections. If idiomaticity should apply to single words, why say "if it is a single word" in the first place? It could just say "attested and idiomatic", like it used to. If editors really want to delete non-standard (do they?), a vote could change the text to "if it is a single non-hyphenated word or it is idiomatic." I find it inadvisable for the reasons expounded in the linked BP discussion. --Dan Polansky (talk) 07:26, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

• Does COALMINE apply? Exminister: [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8]. Exchancellor: [9], [10], [11]. 98.170.164.88 23:16, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

• We also have a bunch of bullshit Spanish ex- entries, like exguardaespaldas, exmercenario, exlocutor. Wonderfool probably made all of them, but was not happy about it. It would be awesome to systematically delete them. GreyishWorm (talk) 22:14, 28 October 2022 (UTC)

Delete. Equinox ◑ 18:02, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

Given the above quotations supporting WT:COALMINE, this is policy override on multiple counts: 1) the general-rule protection of single words from idiomaticity; 2) COALMINE. --Dan Polansky (talk) 10:38, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

• RFD-kept: numerically, no consensus for deletion (2:2). Strength-of-argument-wise, the policy says that "including a term if it is attested and, when that is met, if it is a single word or it is idiomatic", and that is a keep; that interpretatiton of mine is disputed above, but then, we are back to numerical consensus or its lack. --Dan Polansky (talk) 09:50, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

Courtesy crosslink to other similar discussions: Talk:ex-pilot, Talk:ex-stepfather, Talk:ex-alumna (Spanish). - -sche (discuss) 18:36, 1 September 2023 (UTC)