Talk:herbert

RFV discussion: June 2023–November 2024

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herbert

RFV of the sense meaning ‘pervert’. There’s some stuff online, especially on Urban Dictionary, mentioning ‘Herbert the Pervert’ from Family Guy but I can’t find any uses. It would be good to find quotes to support the sense of ‘foolish person’ that I added at Citations:herbert too. The first time I heard this was IRL yesterday when an elderly lady I know did something stupid and said about herself, “What a herbert! What a twonk!”, so it can sometimes be used about females not just males but that might be hard to prove. Overlordnat1 (talk) 12:54, 6 June 2023 (UTC)

The foolish person sense can be found in dictionaries (GDoS: “a simple person”, COED: “an undistinguished or foolish man or youth”). It seems to be an extension of the first sense in the entry (“working-class youth”), although I'm not sure if it's distinct enough to warrant a separate definition line. Einstein2 (talk) 14:21, 6 June 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for that, I'll try and see if I can find the books that Green's Dictionary quotes on Google Books and add them. It looks like the 'working class youth' sense came later though, in the Punk era, while the dictionaries that you've linked to suggest that the 'foolish person/man/youth' came about in the early 20th century, or in the 1960s at the latest. I'd say the senses are distinct too. I suppose it's possible that the Punk era word came from the 1969 Star Trek episode The Way to Eden, where the 'space hippies' describe those not in their group as 'herberts', thus basically using it as a synonym of 'square' (though you'd expect to find usage of the term in early 70s America before it spread to late 70s Britain in that case). --Overlordnat1 (talk) 19:21, 6 June 2023 (UTC)

An online slang dictionary has "Noun. An ^[sic] dull objectionable person. E.g."He's a real herbert, he watches the news and weather on TV all day." This definition fits better with my recollection of the usage I've heard, eg, that bloody herbert than either of our definitions. I think of herbert as UK, possibly also Aus./NZ. DCDuring (talk) 14:04, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

I added a quotation using the "pervert" sense from the song D is for Dangerous by the Arctic Monkeys. I don't really see how it could mean anything else considering the context of the line. FishandChipper (talk) 14:37, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

Thanks. Now fully cited. Overlordnat1 (talk) 18:57, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

I don't think that two of the quotes support the definition. "Dirty herbert" is a pleonasm if the definition is correct. It does not unambiguously support the meaning given. The "D is for Dangerous" lyric seems to support it, if you listen to most of it. DCDuring (talk) 23:40, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

The phrase "dirty pervert" would be equally pleonastic, and occurs very commonly. I can't tell if cites support sense either. Equinox ◑ 23:44, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

Right. The cites do not support the definition unambiguously. Is the term in widespread colloquial use with that meaning? DCDuring (talk) 23:49, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

I wasn’t aware of this meaning, which is why I challenged it to begin with, so I suppose that means it isn’t a widespread term but the last two quotes do seem convincing to me. This is because the 2012 one not only uses the word ‘dirty’ to describe Paddy Considine but also accuses him of being ‘corrupting’, thus supporting the sense that he is a pervert. Furthermore, the 2018 quote not only refers to the person described as a ‘Herbert’ as ‘filthy’ but it does this in the context of the referent (the ‘Herbert/Herbert’) being a character in a futuristic world (so not a punk or a modern-day chav) who is accused of having sex with an underage girl. Overlordnat1 (talk) 00:16, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

The 2012 cite is consistent with the first definition of herbert, labeling PC as being lower class as well as 'corrupting' and 'dirty'. I certainly could be mere pleonasm, but it is not unambiguous. DCDuring (talk) 02:42, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

I really don't see how the sci-fi uses, either Star Trek or the Morin novel offer any value as cites of use a current terrestrial environment. DCDuring (talk) 02:59, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

Unless there’s a fictional race of people called ‘herberts/Herberts’ to cause confusion then I don’t really see why not. I suppose the PC quote isn’t unambiguous and the whole situation is complicated by ‘dirty’ and ‘filthy’ (and ‘corrupting’) being polysemous but I’m personally convinced. I’ve added several uses of ‘herbert’ as a term of abuse to Citations:herbert and I could even add some more just by searching under “dirty/filthy/stupid/silly herbert” or “these/those herberts” with a Google Advanced Search but the exact meaning isn’t always clear. I’ve provisionally categorised them under a “foolish person” definition but perhaps we could create a non-gloss definition of “a term of abuse” instead to cover them?

The first definition doesn’t seem quite right, by the way. It seems like the word ‘herbert’ originated as a mild term of abuse, often used affectionately, for children (something like ‘scamp’ or ‘cheeky monkey’) prior to the punk era (as the Spike Milligan quote demonstrates) and then it came to mean something like “an annoying person, especially a working-class one who is a punk (in the musical/cultural sense)” before then being used as an insult more widely. It can be a derogatory but not neutral or complimentary term for the working classes, like scum of the earth rather than salt of the earth. I can’t see any clear evidence at all that it’s used to mean something like ‘square’ (a boring/unfashionable/conservative person). Overlordnat1 (talk) 10:08, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

I’ve now created a generic sense to cover contemptible people who may or may not be perverted. I still think the pervert sense deserves to pass, in fact the meaning in the other quotes is at least as clear (perhaps more so) than in the Arctic Monkeys one, but I wouldn’t object if the community decides to fail this and moves the cites to the new sense instead. Overlordnat1 (talk) 10:07, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

If we accept all three cites as durably archived, I think the context of each one makes interpreting it as "pervert" plausible. there is some discussion of this word (though not the meaning "pervert") here btw. - -sche (discuss) 01:47, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

Maybe plausibility is the best we can do, but our evidence standards for this kind of thing are questionable. We assume that "ADJ NOUN" phrases are evidence that ADJ is an attribute of NOUN in one of its definitions. Sometimes that might be the case, but much of the usage is at best ambiguous.

In this case, we might leave our normal users better off by simply having a list of collocations with "spotty-faced", "dirty", "filthy", "stupid", "silly", "bloody", etc. DCDuring (talk) 15:46, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

So as a side point, we may want to split the etymology: I suppose all senses come from the given name, but the rhyme with "pervert" is a different reason to choose it. Equinox ◑ 19:59, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

RFV-failed per consensus here (and upon further consideration by me) - I've added the citations related to perverts to the citations page. --Overlordnat1 (talk) 00:08, 14 November 2024 (UTC)