Talk:on a shoestring

Discussion moved from rfd

"Shoestring" can be used in various ways in this sense, not requiring "on a". For example "shoestring budget". — Hippietrail 01:18, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

Keep as the construct shoestring budget does not stand on its own (maybe in some regions, but that seems unlikely.) --Connel MacKenzie 19:19, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

Well I get 108,000 hits on Google just searching for different variations of "shoestring budget" and "shoestring traveller": http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22shoe-string+budget+OR+budgets+OR+traveler+OR+traveller+OR+travelers+OR+travellers%22 — Hippietrail 14:26, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

Thanks; that is a helpful link, which seems to support "shoestring" needing to be preceeded by "on a" in typical uses (certainly all the examples on the first few pages.) Keep. --Connel MacKenzie 04:25, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

And followed by "budget". What part of speech would that make "on a shoestring"? Or are you now advocating we include phrases which cross grammatical boundaries, such as "and the"? Or are you merely saying the article should be moved to on a shoestring budget especially since you yourself have used "not standing on its own" as an argument against keeping phrases? We could also note the variations "on a Shoe String Budget", "A Shoe-String Budget", "On A Shoe-String Budget", "on a shoe-string budget", "on a real shoe string budget". It seems to break several rules discussed before. (I also believe our policy is 1 vote per person) — Hippietrail 14:36, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

I'm reiterating my keep position as you seem to be modifying your complaint(s) as you clarify. Please note that you interpreted what I said as the opposite of what I intended: I was stating a reason why the existing entry should not be deleted, not objecting to some other hypothetical entry. There is an enormous difference between deleting an entry and correcting one. I have no strong objections to it being moved to on a shoestring budget (with some amount of rework, even though that would ignore the "traveller" variant you indicate.) Also, I think most of the examples you supplied (perhaps all) could redirect to that same entry, as is customary here on the English Wiktionary. But it would be helpful to hear other's opinions on the matter. --Connel MacKenzie 00:49, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

OK so everybody knows my stance is that dictionaries should only contain lexemes, the lexical units from which utterances are built. And we all know Connel's stance that Wiktionary should be some new kind of combinatorial catalog of combinations of words into phrases, lexical or not, as long as they would sound natural in their own language.

My stance means that Wiktionary will be more or less like a traditional dictionary but freely editable, not trying to be some kind of new invention. Traditional dictionaries can have a very large but finite lexicon. With them itt's possible to settle disputes such as "is flump a word?". This will also work with idioms.

The "new thing" which Connel wants, since it contains combinations of lexemes, will be infinite. It will not be able to be used as regular dictionaries for settling disputes such as the above since budget, on a budget, shoestring, on a shoestring, on a shoestring budget, on a tight budget, tight budget, on a very tight budget, very tight budget, etc etc ad infinitum, will all have entries, all with definitions, whether or not they are lexical units.

Please could we see the opinions of some other contributors? — Hippietrail 15:33, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

We could have a less permissive headword policy—instead of having all these things on separate pages, they could all go under a new section (=Phraseology= or such) on pages like shoestring and budget. That way the information is present—as I agree with it should be—but it isn't accorded so much lexeme status. —Muke Tever 18:06, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

It seems we really need to work on a collocation policy. It would be a great help if somebody were able to borrow a dictionary of collocations from a library or such and see how it works, and how such info could best be presented on Wiktionary. Because this way above is a very poor way. — Hippietrail 23:21, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

As I recall, we have a long-standing general rule in CFI of entering an idiom in some sort of "normal form". E.g., feel one's oats and not "I'm feeling my oats", or rain cats and dogs and not "It's raining cats and dogs". This will rein in much of the combinatorics. It should be OK to add common derived forms as redirects, in lieu of (or complementing) a smarter search function. In the present case, it's not clear that this idiomatic use of "shoestring" appears independently or only in the bound forms shoestring budget and on a shoestring. If it's the former, then "shoestring" should have the appropriate definition added, and the common derived forms can remain as redirects. If it's the latter, then the two should be full entries on an equal basis. They clearly share a common origin, but the components of a term are not always lexemes themselves (e.g., "gruntle", as in disgruntle). -dmh 03:54, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

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