Talk:go from bad to worse

Deletion discussion

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go from bad to worse

This was nommed for speedy deletion, but I disagree. Also, it passes the Lemming Test. --Type56op9 (talk) 08:06, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

Delete. I would say the lemming test is borderline. Only three dictionaries have it (based on that link). --WikiTiki89 14:08, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

• Keep: per lemming argument. Purplebackpack89 19:10, 8 July 2014 (UTC)
• Keep: three idioms dictionaries, Cambridge Learner's, and Collins make a pretty good group of lemmings. DCDuring TALK 21:29, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

But for me it is not that there are no other instances of "[go] from ADJ to Comp(ADJ)" or of "[VERB] from bad to worse". It is that this expression is clearly the prototype for all the low-frequency alterations of both variant constructions. We generally don't have a good way of presenting constructions in mainspace. A high-frequency (for the class of idiomatic constructions) prototype like this is a very good stand-in for the more general forms. DCDuring TALK 21:45, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

But on the other hand, the meaning is perfectly transparent. --WikiTiki89 02:01, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

That is why the better US dictionaries (MW, RHU, AHD, WNW) don't have it. It is good for language learners, I think, including the advanced learners who are the buyers of idioms dictionaries. DCDuring TALK 02:36, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

So you would rather mimic bad dictionaries than good dictionaries? --WikiTiki89 03:08, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

I already know that smart users don't really trust Wiktionary definitions. Perhaps we can at least help language learners. DCDuring TALK 03:13, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

I'm not convinced that bad dictionaries are better for language learners than good ones. And in this case, I think the meaning is transparent to learners as well, if they are familiar with the constituent parts, which they are likely to be. --WikiTiki89 03:28, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

Inspired by your comment, I did a little Google search for "Wiktionary defines [...] as", to see if sites had positive, negative or neutral views of our definitions; data here. 3 sites had negative views of us, 22 cited our definitions neutrally as examples of "how the/a dictionary defines x". - -sche (discuss) 18:03, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

@Wikitiki89 I did not and do not say that. I believe that learners are not in a position to be very discriminating and have less need to be discriminating. They may also value the accessibility of our "expertise".

@-sche It would be interesting to compare us with other online English dictionaries. I have stopped looking at the site metrics that are freely available because Wiktionary.org was so far behind MW in the US – and no one here seemed the least bit interested. DCDuring TALK 19:23, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

I've added the results of a search for "Merriam-Webster defines". (Maybe I should have tried plain "Webster defines", too.) 18 cited MW definitions neutrally as examples of "how the/a dictionary defines x", 5 were news articles promoting / reporting on MW's inclusion of new words, 1 post (duplicated on many sites) had a negative view of MW. - -sche (discuss) 01:32, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

You are a true Stakhanovite. Any current negativity about MW pales by comparison with the high-profile hostility to the introduction of MW3. I mostly see no difference in the way Wiktionary and MW are treated in the sample citations. Almost all the instances are of the author offering the definition given as correct. Maybe I'll see if I can find any instances of explicit comparison. DCDuring TALK 02:07, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

This is neither here nor there, but it occurs to me that if people cite M-W Online (and particularly if they cite print dictionaries) more often than they cite us, one reason may be that they assume those dictionaries' definitions will not change soon or often, whereas they recognize that ours can be edited at any time. In my opinion, that means M-W has an apple and Wiktionary has an orange, i.e. it doesn't mean one is better than the other, since each one has a benefit: M-W has stability, which is good, and we have the potential for quick reflexes and definitions and usexes that are up-to-date and optimized for clarity based on feedback, which is also good. - -sche (discuss) 16:37, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

@-sche It's here now. Unfortunately we occupy a tenuous middle ground between Urban Dictionary and MW. UD is vastly more responsive, trendy, and folksy. We show no interest in pursuing that and our behavior toward anon contributions shows it. MW seems more "social" with respect to normal users than we actually are: they have lots of comment-type participation on entries I look at there. (BTW, I assume the comments are moderated.) DCDuring TALK 11:53, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

BTW, Urban Dictionary ranks ahead of us in website traffic. DCDuring TALK 12:00, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

UD and Wiktionary don't even attempt to serve the same purpose! Equinox ◑ 12:04, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

• On the fence, but my sense is that this is a far more common construction than its positive counterpart, "go from good to better". Also, is there something grammatically incorrect in the phrasing? You can say that someone will "go from Phoenix to Albuquerque", or omit the first part and merely say that they will "go to Albuquerque", but you can't really say that a situation will "go to worse". bd2412 T 12:44, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

  I agree that "from good to better" is rare, but there is nothing grammatically wrong with the construction. People definitely say things like: After the successful day, John Doe went from nervous to confident. --WikiTiki89 13:57, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

  A further generalization of the construction, which seems farther yet from setness, is: "from ADJ1 to ADJ2". "The opinions ranged/went/ran/etc from stupid to well-informed." With most verbs both ends of the spectrum apparently need to be defined with prepositional phrases that don't work by themselves. DCDuring TALK 14:30, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

I feel like it's idiomatic but the meaning's pretty transparent. What WT:CFI#Idiomaticity says is "An expression is idiomatic if its full meaning cannot be easily derived from the meaning of its separate components." I'd say this doesn't meet it because like I said, the meaning is transparent. But if it were purely down to voting I'd keep it. Renard Migrant (talk) 11:07, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

Not relevant if other dictionaries have it or not. They don't use our criteria and we don't use theirs. Plus if we just start copying from other dictionaries... what's the point? I's never been our goal to become Oxford or Merriam Webster or Collins. Renard Migrant (talk) 11:16, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

No, we must be better than them! We're about 8% of the way there, by my best estimations. --Type56op9 (talk) 11:33, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

Being better does not mean including more words. --WikiTiki89 13:48, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

@Renard Migrant "Not relevant if other dictionaries have it". There are some of us who have sufficient respect for professional lexicographers at other dictionaries and sufficient concern about the competitive standing of Wiktionary that we actually pay attention to such things. I now see the error of my ways.

@Wikitiki89 I agree that we should devote much more time to improving the quality of our existing entries, especially English, for which we might be expected to have the definitions that, for example, other-language wiktionaries would rely on. Attestation, usage examples, wording, missing senses, missing grammar notes all merit our attention. DCDuring TALK 15:52, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

I don't feel like respect comes into it at all. They work with different criteria so come out with different results. Renard Migrant (talk) 16:11, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

Weak delete. The definition doesn't even try to disguise the fact that the term (the sum) means precisely what one would think based on its component parts, i.e. it's SOP. - -sche (discuss) 16:43, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

• Delete. It's sum of parts. Are we going to include it's going to get worse before it gets better, or other similar constructions? Inclusion in other dictionaries may not be relevant in this case, since their Criteria for Inclusion are different to ours. ---> Tooironic (talk) 10:02, 11 July 2014 (UTC)
• Keep as idiomatic. I often use this expression. Donnanz (talk) 11:22, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

  @Tooironic Some things we know about the inclusion criteria of other dictionaries:

  1. They are influenced by scarcity of funds, whether they are run for profit or not, so that they do not insert items without cause.
  2. The print dictionaries are space-limited, something inherited by most online dictionaries based on print dictionaries, hence they tend to be less complete, less inclusive than Wiktionary.
  3. They would seem to want to include items the meaning of which users, potential customers, etc might want to know and expect to be able to find out in a dictionary.
  4. They compete for many of the same users that are the justification for Wiktionary getting the resources it has.

  The assertion that inclusion by other dictionaries is irrelevant seems completely unsustainable in fact, though it might win a vote here. DCDuring TALK 11:41, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

  It appears in Oxford. http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/from-bad-to-worse?q=bad+to+worse Donnanz (talk) 12:04, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

  @Donnanz I hope you understand that "I often use this expression" has nothing to do with idiomacity. --WikiTiki89 13:59, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

  I'm more than likely not unique though, there are probably millions of people who use it. Donnanz (talk) 14:15, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

  That's not the point. Frequency of use is not a factor in deciding idiomacity. --WikiTiki89 14:33, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

  We could argue for days on end on whether it's idiomatic or not, and I'm not going to do that. I think it's idiomatic as a result of being a common expression in everyday language, and I'm sticking to that. I realise your own opinion may differ. Donnanz (talk) 14:51, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

  As I'm sure you know, WT:CFI doesn't have this interpretation of idiomatic, it has a different one! Renard Migrant (talk) 18:06, 12 July 2014 (UTC)

• Keep. Ƿidsiþ 12:46, 11 July 2014 (UTC)
• Keep. For decoding, it is fairly transparent, but, for encoding, how would you know that people actually say this? In Czech, you don't say *"šlo to od špatnému k horšímu", you say "šlo to od desíti k pěti". Also per “go from bad to worse”, in OneLook Dictionary Search., "lemmings". --Dan Polansky (talk) 08:23, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
• Keep, per Dan Polansky. This shows that SOP should not be considered as a criterion, the sound criterion is does it belong to the vocabulary of the language? or might it be useful for learners to learn it? (which is very different from commonness). This project can be used to learn new words you've never seen anywhere else (e.g. through categories). Lmaltier (talk) 16:55, 20 July 2014 (UTC)
• Delete per Tooironic.​—msh210℠ (talk) 05:15, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

• RFD kept for no consensus for deletion. Pro keeping: Type56op9 (AKA Wonderfool), Purplebackpack89, DCDuring, Donnanz, Ƿidsiþ, Dan Polansky, Lmaltier; pro deletion: WikiTiki89, -sche (0.5, since "weak"), Tooironic, msh210. --Dan Polansky (talk) 08:51, 10 August 2014 (UTC)