Talk:fall to pieces

RFD discussion: November–December 2017

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fall to pieces

Both senses seem SoP, one relying on a literal to + pieces, the other on idiomatic to pieces. DCDuring (talk) 10:21, 1 November 2017 (UTC)

Slightly hesitant because it seems very common. And to draw an analogy I wouldn't be bothered with having French tomber en pièces/tomber en ruine(s?). --Barytonesis (talk) 10:47, 1 November 2017 (UTC)

• Keep, not the usual sense of fall - as when a book falls to pieces, nothing has to actually fall anywhere. Certainly not transparent, but just so common in English that it seems transparent. Sense 2 is definitely not understandable from SoP, being a metaphorical extension of sense 1. The fact that we've created an entry for "to pieces" (supposedly being discussed in the Tea room but I cannot see any discussion) is not a good reason for deleting this because it is very unlikely that anyone would look up "to pieces" if they came across "fall to pieces" and wanted to understand its meaning.-Sonofcawdrey (talk) 08:08, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

  Not the most common, but common: fall ("to change into the state described by words following"), eg, fall asleep, fall into disrepair. DCDuring (talk) 13:42, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

There is definitely some kind of "standard metaphor" by which a person can be reduced to pieces (by various verbs, even just the flavourless "GO to pieces"). There are other types of breakage that don't really "work": someone would only shatter, crack, or smash in a poetic context, if at all. But "...to pieces" can take a zillion verbs. I feel as though we should cover some of these metaphors (God knows how) but I don't think that creating entries for every possible verb is the way. Equinox ◑ 13:50, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

We could make redirects to [[to pieces]] from as many of the collocations as we care to. DCDuring (talk) 15:41, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

Off the top of my head, I can't think of many of the zillion other verbs - fall, go, bring are the most frequent in this particular sense afaik, - we could just cover these. - Sonofcawdrey (talk) 01:35, 6 November 2017 (UTC)

Love, kick, smash, cut, shoot, slice, rip, tear, blast, blow, break, chop, dance, crumble, hack, shred, shatter, dismantle, break, fracture, and spin are some. Most can be found in both literal and figurative usage. DCDuring (talk) 05:06, 6 November 2017 (UTC)

love goes with def 2 "completely, utterly", all of the others go with def 1 "apart" - but I don't think any of these go with sense 4 "into a state of emotional breakdown", which I believe goes with very few verbs and since this is not the most common meaning, nor one that is likely to be understood by someone who doesn't understand "fall to pieces" and wishes to look it up, having an entry is good dictionary practice. Don't we want the dictionary to be as useful as possible? - Sonofcawdrey (talk) 08:38, 7 November 2017 (UTC)

Sorry. I lost my way in the discussion and drifted off into the "apart" definition. DCDuring (talk) 17:30, 7 November 2017 (UTC)

• Keep using the lemming heuristic: Merriam-Webster has it, with 3 senses[1]. --Dan Polansky (talk) 16:37, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

Kept. bd2412 T 00:01, 27 December 2017 (UTC)

Obsolete childbirth slang?

John Camden Hotten's Slang Dictionary (1873) says: "A woman is vulgarly said to “fall to pieces”, when she is confined" (i.e. at the time of childbirth). Equinox ◑ 19:04, 1 October 2022 (UTC)