Talk:mackinaw coat

RfD discussion

The following information passed a request for deletion.

This discussion is no longer live and is left here as an archive. Please do not modify this conversation, but feel free to discuss its conclusions.

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RfV tag added in mid August, but apparently not entered here.

Generally similar to the now-deleted mackinaw jacket, now deleted.

But see “mackinaw coat”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.. Ergo: Keep. DCDuring TALK 20:00, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Delete. I think anything to be said about this is for Wikipedia; the denim jacket, straw hat, etc. also have cultural connotations, but in terms of definition they are just a Y made of X. Equinox ◑ 23:52, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

That's the etymology. The coat seems to be something more specific in length, belt, cut, pockets, etc, not necessarily though usually of the metonymous cloth, which are some of the reasons why professional lexicographers have an entry for it. This reminds of the discussion of oak and oak tree, the inclusion of the latter being a good precedent for this. I being small-minded, find consistency compelling. Of course, institutional bias favors things familiar to a large portion of contributors. which this North American artifact is not. DCDuring TALK 01:19, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

It still seems cultural rather than lexical. The straw hat is always flat-topped and not round like a bowler (I think?!), but if somebody did produce a round hat of straw it would presumably still be a straw hat. The fact that straw hats tend to be flat-topped, and/or worn by picnickers and old-fashioned schoolboys, is not lexical. Equinox ◑ 01:30, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

• Delete. All of the OneLook dictionaries that have an entry for "mackinaw coat" define it as synonymous with "mackinaw", so all we really need is a sense "a coat made of this material" at mackinaw and we're good. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 09:41, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

  We could provide users with that help, too. Or we could treat [[mackinaw]] as a disambiguation page. Or we could make the various collocations redirects to a better entry at [[mackinaw]] with fuller definitions, and possibly pictures for the coat/jacket. DCDuring TALK 11:06, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

  We don't have disambig pages here, do we? I think if I were to encounter "mackinaw coat" in my reading and wondered what it meant, the first thing I would look up in my dictionary is mackinaw, not mackinaw coat. I know what a coat is. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 13:04, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

  Au contraire mon ami, we have many. They are quite similar to WP dab pages, except they lack the formal designation. The ones I am most familiar with are for vernacular names of living things, eg, [[rockfish]], but there are many others. DCDuring TALK 15:19, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

Keep both, especially since they predate the use of ‘Mackinaw’ alone (not true, see below). Ƿidsiþ 10:25, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

In fact what should really be up for RFD is the sense of ‘Mackinaw’ as ‘heavy woollen cloth’, since as far as I know it's only ever used in compounds like this. The meaning is not ‘a coat made of Mackinaw’, but rather ‘a coat associated with the Mackinaw lake’, hence also terms like Mackinaw boat (which naturally is not made of cloth). Ƿidsiþ 10:30, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

You are almost certainly right for current English. The "heavy woolen cloth" definition is at least dated, but it has historical/literary interest. If "coat/jacket of mackinaw" appeared in a text, I suspect most users would not type in "mackinaw coat/jacket". DCDuring TALK 11:11, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

If it's true that "mackinaw coat" is older than "mackinaw" in the relevant sense, then it's keepable by WT:JIFFY. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 13:06, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

For the record, the definition of mackinaw jacket prior to deletion was:

# A short coat made of mackinaw cloth, a dense water-repellent wool. These jackets were popular with lumberjacks and outdoor enthusiasts throughout the colder regions of North America for much of the 18th and 19th centuries. They had at minimum two breast pockets, though four front pockets are common. Mackinaw jackets can be of any color, but the black and red plaid "lumberjack" pattern was most common. [They are warm and comfy, perfect to wear while enjoying a fresh cup of coffee on a November morning, while standing on the hand-built wooden deck outside your kitchen, overlooking the tree-lined slopes. I once knew a girl who wore a mackinaw jacket, her innocent eyes curling up into the sky like whisps of smoke.]

I may have added a few lines, but you get the picture. bd2412 T 14:10, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

Seems like it could have used help from a contributor instead of the back of the hand. But it is not easy to write a good definition for any real object that varies around a typical configuration. The prototype for the problem is game. DCDuring TALK 15:19, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

Actually, correction – I made a mistake there. Per the OED, mackinaw in the sense of ‘cloth’ does, indeed, predate the sense of ‘coat’. Apologies. Nevertheless I still vote to keep the compounds. Ƿidsiþ 14:51, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

• Keep, erring on the side of. Per DCDuring and Widsith. Collins has "mackinaw" defined as "Mackinaw coat"[1]. A key question is whether "mackinaw" is ever used alone to refer to the cloth (or to the coat?), or whether it almost always occurs in compounds; I don't know. Again, nothing very strightforward. --Dan Polansky (talk) 19:08, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

A comment for the keepers: if this were kept, something else should be offered as definition than the current mackinaw coat! Meanwhile, delete. --Hekaheka (talk) 04:50, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

• The previous definition was "A mackinaw jacket". I changed it following the deletion of that entry, per the previous vote on this page. I have provided the previous definition of "mackinaw jacket" above. bd2412 T 17:15, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

Delete per Widsith and others. Renard Migrant (talk) 12:11, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

Widsith argued for keeping, so your comment makes no sense to me. --Dan Polansky (talk) 08:05, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

Yes it does, he says keep because the significance is cultural not lexical, and I say delete because the significance is cultural not lexical. Renard Migrant (talk) 10:41, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

@Renard Migrant the word "cultural" does not appear anywhere in Widsith responses. Which sentence of Widsith is to the effect that the significance of the compound mackinaw coat is cultural and not lexical? --Dan Polansky (talk) 12:18, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

Widsith says we should keep mackinaw coat because it predates mackinaw. Not a lexical argument (because nothing to do with the usage of the words mackinaw or coat). Then he claims this isn't true but says we should keep it anyway. So, he claims this is idiomatic, disproves his own argument, and then says keep. I could hardly come up with a better deletion rationale if I wanted to. Renard Migrant (talk) 13:55, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

@Renard Migrant So what you are saying is that he retracted the only rationale that he provided. And yet you said delete per Widsith. You can do better than that. --Dan Polansky (talk) 17:32, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

• RFD kept as no consensus for deletion (3 keeps, 2 deletes). --Dan Polansky (talk) 09:58, 30 November 2014 (UTC)