Talk:master baiter

RFD discussion: December 2021–January 2022

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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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master baiter

Always the punning punchline of a joke, like the deleted cereal killer [1]. Equinox ◑ 19:08, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

Keep. Meaning is still conveyed, despite being part of a punchline. I also disagree with cereal killer's deletion for the same reason. It's not like icup which has literally no meaning without the joke. PseudoSkull (talk) 19:13, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

All puns convey meaning. You think we should include every pun? Like a door being not a door because it is "a jar"? Equinox ◑ 19:14, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

This is different, though. This word as a noun and humorous alternate form of masturbator can be used with no adjacent context to it, see 1 and 2 and 3 as examples, where fishing, baiting, etc. isn't even mentioned. I can produce countless more if need be. So my position is that this word evolved from simply being the punchline to a joke to being an actual synonym of masturbator that could be used without the context to the joke. a jar always has to be preceded by the joke, though, by its very nature. PseudoSkull (talk) 19:33, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

Even I can think of this one, so as a pun it's pretty corny. DonnanZ (talk) 10:40, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

Reminds me of User:Masterbutter. Name ist/war Programm. – Jberkel 00:21, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

I wonder whether any of our cunning linguists have an opinion on this ... Mihia (talk) 20:06, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

(btw, is this the most hilarious definition in Wiktionary? cunning linguist: Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see cunning,‎ linguist.)

• Keep. This easily attested non-idiomatic phrase is both non-idiomatic and easily attested. bd2412 T 00:58, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

Delete per nom. It beats me how this got a nonzero number of keep votes. Imetsia (talk) 18:25, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

• I see what you did there. bd2412 T 18:40, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

Heh, Imetsia pulled off a crafty one ... Mihia (talk) 10:54, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

I honestly didn't have any double meanings in mind when I wrote that (and I didn't see it until bd2412's comment above). So this is just pure coincidence 😆! Imetsia (talk) 16:15, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

Delete —Svārtava ^{[t•c•u•r]} 03:51, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

Keep per PseudoSkull and bd2412. AG202 (talk) 12:08, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

Note to any future voters that the votes cast by @Equinox, Imetsia, Svartava still have yet to address the fact that this word can be used and has been used without the context of the pun, per Books citations by BD and Usenet citations by me, thereby making it more lexical like cunning linguist. I'm sure there are other words I could use as analogies that entered common usage but originated as simply a pun. Seems like the opposition is based on emotional biases against certain words rather than some hard evidence of not entering the lexicon. PseudoSkull (talk) 13:59, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

• I did neglect to mention in my !vote that I (easily) found and added citations. I would suggest that this is obviously nonidiomatic to the words master and baiter, but that usage is transparent enough that this could basically be called a humorous alternative spelling of masturbator. bd2412 T 07:33, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

Keep (due to the cunning linguist and humorous spelling arguments) Overlordnat1 (talk) 13:34, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

My main reason for voting for its deletion was that its very easily guessable and understandable. I had never read this word before, yet on the first sight I could correctly guess what it meant. I also think such puns shouldn't be a part of dictionary, e.g. other dictionaries don't have an entry for this term, but OTOH, as PseudoSkull stated that usages have been found without the context of the pun, the entry might as well be kept (after all, not all our entries are there in other dictionaries and that isn't really a valid criteria). Moreover, I am conflicted on whether this should be kept or deleted, so I abstain. —Svārtava ^{[t•c•u•r]} 16:26, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

RFD-kept. — Fytcha〈 T | L | C 〉 19:45, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

looking for a literal sense

As i just posted on talk:mass debate, this seems like it would be productive in a literal sense too, for any sense of bait. At least one of the five cites we have now really belongs better under the literal sense, and I remember a YouTuber who said things like "I just need to master-bait this [enemy] out", meaning to draw the enemy into a trap by having the player appear weak and vulnerable. This would probably be spelled both ways though it would be difficult to attest masturbate in the sense of "bait" due to the signal/noise ratio. —Soap— 13:38, 30 November 2023 (UTC)