Talk:good boy

RFD discussion: November 2023–October 2024

The following discussion has been moved from Wiktionary:Requests for deletion (permalink).

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good boy, good girl

Seems to be SOP, just that it can be used sarcastically as in the given usage example. कालमैत्री (talk) 08:39, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

Delete. (And if a good girl is a female child, how can she "stand by her man"? Sounds a bit dodgy!) Equinox ◑ 09:15, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

Not so fast. I think they are common exclamations. If so, amend and keep. DonnanZ (talk) 11:51, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

Yes, there is definitely use of both phrases as a sincere term of congratulations for a small child or for a pet, upon which the idiomatic use for adults is based. I think these pages should be expanded, but also support keeping the idiomatic usage, so my support is for adding your sense, not replacing the existing sense. —Soap— 12:52, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

As an aside, why does the nominator use an unreadable name? DonnanZ (talk) 12:00, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

@Donnanz Do you think a conspirator shall speak of his ways? कालमैत्री (talk) 15:13, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

That's a counter-question, not a satisfactory answer. DonnanZ (talk) 15:43, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

To be fair, the definition reads as "An obedient female child, or someone who behaves like one"; I presume that's the part that applies in this usex. The definition should be split imo, because I was also confused at first. PUC – 20:18, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

Keep, as I think these are plainly idiomatic. Is it not obvious that the use-example I chose describes a woman who obeys her male partner without question? And that most of us would consider such a woman to be excessively obedient? This goes far beyond the literal meaning good girl you would use to describe a five-year-old who shares their candy with neighborhood kids even when their parents didn't tell them to. Likewise, the use-example on good boy describes an adult man who avoids taking on a difficult adult responsibility, something we would never expect a literal child to handle.

I created these pages just two days ago, and I intend to add to them a lot more, but I prefer to work at a slow pace, hopping around from page to page, rather than focusing on getting a new entry to completion right out of the gate. I wasn't expecting an RFD so soon after creation. Nonetheless, the core of the content is there, and I see no reason to consider this a sum-of-parts definition. The fact that it needs so much explanation is a demonstration on its own that it's idiomatic. Best regards, —Soap— 12:32, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

I think the wording of the pages is good as it is, but if I were to break the combined definitions apart so that the idiomatic sense was defined as something such as an excessively obedient (wo)man, would we still consider this to be sum-of-parts? If so, how could a naive reader coming across the phrase good girl in a context like the above use our definitions of good (7 senses just for people) and girl (10 senses) to put together that it means an excessively obedient woman? If this is going to be another one of those "they'll figure it out from context" RFD's, I'll just say as I've said before that the people who look things up in a dictionary are precisely NOT the people who can piece out an unpredictable definition from the context it's in. We don't write for people like us. —Soap— 12:38, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

I hope you realise how pretentious and condescending you're sounding right now. PUC – 13:21, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

No, I don't. In fact, I don't think I could be condescending if I tried. But that's irrelevant ... what matters to me is .... can anyone answer my question? —Soap— 13:34, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

Delete, SOAP. What next: good husband, good wife, good doggo? PUC – 13:20, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

Can you show me idiomatic uses of those phrases? Particularly ones that are as far from a literal meaning as well-behaved child is from excessively obedient adult? —Soap— 13:34, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

The meaning of words are not idiomatic, as i said of the usage examples you have: they have been used (shallowly) in the context to taunt, to suggest excessiveness. Words like good father etc. can be used similarly.
Yes, a kid might not understand the use case, but many a satirical use cases are not always apparent.
And lastly i think red-green alliance should have been kept. कालमैत्री (talk) 15:10, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

Re good doggo: note that we have good boi. J3133 (talk) 16:28, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

Keep, but I think the example for "good boy" is really weird and should be changed. Honestly the context for the current example is unclear to me. I think a better example for idiomatic usage (use for an adult) would be something like

"I know how to cook dinner, Dave. Now be a good boy and go wait quietly with the kids." Or

"Be a good boy and give your mother a call. She's been calling every day for a week!"

something like that. AmbiguouslyAnonymous (talk) 14:02, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

Keep. I don't think these are used only in cases where it would be natural to use "boy" or "girl." Also, I think a good test for idiomaticity is if a term can be translated literally. Is that the case here? Can you say "bon garçon" to a dog or a child in French? I'm not a native speaker, but I think something like "bravo" would be more likely. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 22:46, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

But the senses don't include the use as interjection, while that should be the case only then. Have you read the entries? Your French argument is not correct, a particular phrase can be used in one language, but might sound awkward in other even with literal senses. कालमैत्री (talk) 03:43, 19 November 2023 (UTC)

To clarify my vote: Delete noun but keep as an interjection. My translation-based argument doesn't prove anything, it's true, but it is still evidence, or at least an argument for making it a translation hub. But you're right, I neglected to read the entry and based on some of the above comments, thought we were talking about an interjection sense. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 04:59, 19 November 2023 (UTC)

Seconding this: keep as an interjection. Theknightwho (talk) 14:01, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

If kept, can we add an example for a pet, most esp. dog, which, at least where I live, is a very common usage. Two policeman at a police station, one says to the other "We've been interrogating this dog all morning, and he still won't tell us who's a good boy." Mihia (talk) 22:08, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

No consensus to delete. I have added the interjection senses. bd2412 T 18:41, 9 October 2024 (UTC)