Talk:more Catholic than the Pope
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- RFV-sense: (idiomatic) hypocritical Added later --Dan Polansky (talk) 07:39, 6 December 2014 (UTC).
The entry for more_Catholic_than_the_Pope includes "hypocritical" as a connotation. This is non-standard to the point of being the opposite of the main meaning of the idiom, and is either inadvertently confusing or deliberately wrong. Soliciting examples of usage with that meaning per RFV.
- If it comes to that, I don't think I've ever heard it used literally, as in sense 1. Sense 2 is the only one I know. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 07:35, 29 October 2014 (UTC)
- You must travel in exclusively secular circles. Google books abounds with more or less literal uses. The challenged sense is now the third sense in any event, which I didn't find among the first hundred+ hits at Google books. DCDuring TALK 10:51, 29 October 2014 (UTC)
- No, but I travel in predominantly Protestant circles! —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 10:55, 29 October 2014 (UTC)
- I can't picture this directly meaning "hypocritical". I can certainly see it that context, though. For example, in "He cheats and steals throughout the week, but on Sundays is more Catholic than the Pope.", the expression is used in its literal meaning. --WikiTiki89 11:49, 29 October 2014 (UTC)
- I am fairly sure that the contributor of that definition, part of its creation, is not a native English speaker. A non-native speaker could have misinterpreted such a use, perhaps underestimating the importance of a word like but or missing an implicit contrast.
- Other languages have similar expressions (translated as "more royalist than the king" (French), "a bowl hotter than the soup" (Persian)). DCDuring TALK 13:45, 29 October 2014 (UTC)
- 2000, Eliphas Levi, The Great Secret: or Occultism Unveiled[1], page 36:
- In upholding this in the face of the Pope himself if necessary, we shall be more catholic than the Pope and more protestant than Luther when occasion demands
- It makes for the generic snowclone "more AdjP than NP", 'NP' being the paragon or arbiter of 'AdjP'. For a change, the prototype seems to be entryworthy, though sense 1 seems quite literal and transparent. OTOH I suppose that, even for that sense, there is a question of 'prior knowledge': accepting the convention that the Pope plays the role required. DCDuring TALK 13:59, 29 October 2014 (UTC)
- I can't picture this directly meaning "hypocritical". I can certainly see it that context, though. For example, in "He cheats and steals throughout the week, but on Sundays is more Catholic than the Pope.", the expression is used in its literal meaning. --WikiTiki89 11:49, 29 October 2014 (UTC)
- No, but I travel in predominantly Protestant circles! —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 10:55, 29 October 2014 (UTC)
- You must travel in exclusively secular circles. Google books abounds with more or less literal uses. The challenged sense is now the third sense in any event, which I didn't find among the first hundred+ hits at Google books. DCDuring TALK 10:51, 29 October 2014 (UTC)
- RFV failed: no attesting quotations for the sense "hypocritical" provided. --Dan Polansky (talk) 13:36, 26 December 2014 (UTC)
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Written as a verb, but it isn't one. In fact I'm not sure what it is, adjective I guess. Mglovesfun (talk) 20:10, 8 December 2011 (UTC)
- Yeah it's an adj.Lucifer
- Sense 1 could use
{{&lit}}despite the claim in its context tag. The usage note identifies a third sense we don't have listed as such.—msh210℠ (talk) 00:30, 12 December 2011 (UTC)- This looks to me like an entry for which the "Phrase" PoS is made. The headword does not behave very much like a true adjective. It is hardly ever used attributively and does not form a comparative. Instead it fits in the natural sequence "more X than Y", "as X as Y", and "less X than Y". DCDuring TALK 15:17, 12 December 2011 (UTC)
- To save time, I'll agree with everything msh210 said. Mglovesfun (talk) 00:32, 16 December 2011 (UTC)
- Ever?
:-)—msh210℠ (talk) 06:04, 16 December 2011 (UTC)- Above my previous comment! Mglovesfun (talk) 11:29, 16 December 2011 (UTC)
- Ever?
- To save time, I'll agree with everything msh210 said. Mglovesfun (talk) 00:32, 16 December 2011 (UTC)
- This looks to me like an entry for which the "Phrase" PoS is made. The headword does not behave very much like a true adjective. It is hardly ever used attributively and does not form a comparative. Instead it fits in the natural sequence "more X than Y", "as X as Y", and "less X than Y". DCDuring TALK 15:17, 12 December 2011 (UTC)