Talk:get ahead of

RFD discussion: June 2019–April 2020

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get ahead of

sole definition: "To reveal information that is disadvantageous to oneself in order to spin it in public before one's opponents have a chance to do so."

= get + ahead of ("in advance of")

Even if you think the definition is not just an application of an SoP collocation, it has no cites that suggest this is an accurate definition. DCDuring (talk) 18:28, 23 June 2019 (UTC)

It's not clear to me what kind of object our definition is supposed to take. The definition seems miswritten, I would say. Sense #5 at https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/get+ahead+of seems somewhat related:

5. To take preemptive action before something is revealed or becomes well-known.

We need to get ahead of this scandal before it breaks to the public.

Mihia (talk) 19:33, 23 June 2019 (UTC)

The Fairlex definition doesn't seem bad, but I don't think get ahead is the right headword for either their def 1 or def 5. If we think we should have an entry, then I'd like it as get ahead of because I believe ahead of is a compound preposition and the definitions of get ahead (with ahead an adverb, the combination intransitive) seem semantically not very closely related to get ahead of (with ahead of a preposition, the combination transitive). DCDuring (talk) 00:00, 24 June 2019 (UTC)

I agree with Mihia get ahead of should be an entry. It means 'to take take preemptive action before a foreseen development becomes reality'. But the def "going public with information before the story breaks" is merely descriptive of one way to get ahead of something in a specific case - it is not a separate meaning. - Sonofcawdrey (talk) 20:59, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

Deleted specific sense, kept general sense. - TheDaveRoss 20:46, 23 April 2020 (UTC)