Talk:my fellow Americans

Deletion debate

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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my fellow Americans

my + fellow + Americans? ---> Tooironic 09:28, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, delete.​—msh210℠ (talk) 16:43, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

¶ Delete: it sounds too gimmicky. Plus, some people omit ‘my’. I  do not see any loss in deleting this. --Pilcrow 16:51, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

It is a formula for speech introductions in the US. I thought we liked to have such speech-act idioms (or was that just DAVilla?). Are we starting to dispense with monolingual considerations of idiomaticity in favor to the translation rationale? If so there are many entries in Category:English idioms worthy of prejudicial review. DCDuring TALK 17:29, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

What are you talking about? I don't quite understand your logic. ---> Tooironic 21:19, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Delete, seems like a clear SoP. Not an idiom because the meaning doesn't change when the individual words are put together. Tempodivalse [talk] 03:17, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

SoP in linguistic terms, but it has some cultural mileage. You can't just replace 'Americans' with any nationality like "my fellow Scots", "my fellow Englishmen". Mglovesfun (talk) 22:02, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Keep. Has a specific cultural meaning (not well defined though). As I understand it, I normally associate it with the State of the Union address. As said above, you can't swap other nationalities for American. Set phrase also.--Dmol 10:01, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

What are you talking about? Of course you can replace it with any nationality; Americans don't have monopoly on it. [1], [2], [3], [4], [5]. ---> Tooironic 12:29, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Keep and fix. As Tooironic has inadvertently demonstrated, the stereotypical American usage is rare-to-nonexistent with other nationalities. But our entry doesn't clearly explain the stereotypical American usage. (On the other hand, Talk:mistakes were made has established a precedent of deleting idioms that have cultural resonance.) —Ruakh_TALK 12:41, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Rare-to-nonexistent? Did you actually have a look at the Googe Book hits I provided above? There's plenty to go around. ---> Tooironic 20:34, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

I did look at them, and they're exactly what motivated my comment. I only saw two or three non-American examples of vocative use; and to my mind, the vocative use is what really sets this apart as borderline-idiomatic. (And even in non-vocative use, the non-American hit-counts were not impressive.) —Ruakh_TALK 21:25, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

What Ruakh said. Mglovesfun (talk) 21:37, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

I think I get what you mean. It's just strange that we would have this in a dictionary. That being said we do have entries for to whom it may concern, God Save the Queen and ladies and gentlemen so I guess it's not that weird. ---> Tooironic 22:08, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Err on the side of keep per Ruakh and also per Tooironic's examples: "for to whom it may concern", "God Save the Queen" and "ladies and gentlemen". (Talk:mistakes were made ended in 7:4 for deletion and should not have been deleted anyway.) --Dan Polansky 07:49, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Meh, delete. Ƿidsiþ 12:52, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

I think CFI would say delete as it's obvious from the sum of its parts. The additional information is really usage notes not definition material. Personal I don't feel strongly either way; perhaps slightly favor deletion of keeping, but by a tiny amount. Mglovesfun (talk) 16:36, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Keep and improve. --Anatoli 06:20, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Delete. Equinox ◑ 22:31, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Kept for lack of consensus. Equinox ◑ 16:42, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

origin/early use

Does anyone know how long this has been a thing? As Dmol mentioned in the debate, association to State of the Union addresses, and that probably popularized it, but used much more broadly these days. Lincoln never used it, I think, nor Teddy Roosevelt, but possiy FDR. Anyone? Any interest? Ragityman (talk) 16:03, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

I remember Richard Nixon using it, and (I think) LBJ Chuck Entz (talk) 05:03, 29 November 2018 (UTC)