Talk:player to be named later

RFD

The following discussion has been moved from Wiktionary:Requests for deletion.

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player to be named later

I don't think I need to explain this. Also not 'baseball' as claimed. Mglovesfun (talk) 18:25, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

What's next !!? Delete. --Hekaheka (talk) 21:22, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Hardly worse than most likely to succeed. Delete. Equinox ◑ 21:24, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Delete per nomination. — Ungoliant ^(Falai) 23:48, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Just to be explicit: We are deleting this despite the fact that it has clear cultural reference that gives it more meaning than its components. DCDuring TALK 04:54, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

Wouldn't that something more be better covered at an entry for to be named later. See, for example:

• 1984, David Shields, Heroes: A Novel, page 257:

  In 1762 we were traded to Spain for a backup center to be named later.

• 1998, Brant E. Ducey, The Rajah of Renfrew: The Life and Times of John E. Ducey, page 284:

  Samis and Ducey agreed to a trade that saw first baseman Jack McGill return to the Eskimos for a left-handed pitcher to be named later.

• 2012, Chris Jensen, Peter Golenbock, Baseball State by State: Major and Negro League Players, page 14:

  Gamble possessed the most impressive Afro ever displayed on the diamond. The Yankees acquired the outfielder from the Indians in 1975 for Pat Dobson and a hair pick to be named later.

Therefore, move to to be named later and redefine to indicate that it is not necessarily a "player" but any currently unspecified object to be identified in the future in exchange for a trade in the present. bd2412 T 01:24, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

Also to be announced later, to be revealed later, to be disclosed later, to be discussed later (more than 100k Google hits each against 400k of "to be named later") and probably many others formed with this pattern are quite common expressions, but they are all completely predictable from their parts. Delete, don't move. --Hekaheka (talk) 08:01, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

Delete (delete to be named later, too, if anyone creates it). - -sche (discuss) 08:41, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

Keep the term with possibly a different definition, as I do not understand the following sentences:

• "Noles was sent back to the Cubs a month later on Oct. 23 as the player to be named later."[1]
• "In a late-July deal, the Angels acquired Dan Osinski, a hard-throwing righty from Kansas City for “a player to be named later.”"[2]
  • Notice the quotation marks.
• "Thus you see established players with significant careers traded for fringe players, future draft choices, or the famous “player to be named later."[3]
  • Again, notice the quotation marks, suggesting something not altogether straightforward is going on. --Dan Polansky (talk) 12:08, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

It is a formula in sports press releases/journalism, but it is transparent. IMO no such literal use would justify inclusion. There may be figurative use, possibly just of the form to be named later as BD suggests, that is a reference to this kind of element in an exchange. DCDuring TALK 12:55, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

Here is an example of such figurative use of to be named later:

This suggests that a synonym for player to be named later is pig in a poke. DCDuring TALK 13:07, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

I think these show that there is extended use of to be named later in a sense not quite literal. DCDuring TALK 13:23, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

I would add that this differs from the more literal uses in phrases like to be announced, to be revealed, to be disclosed, to be discussed. If a couple has a child "to be named later" (although it now occurs to me that the "later" is also superflous to the phrase), that literally means the child has not been given a name yet. This is the same issue that makes named for and named after (above on this page) idiomatic. With regard to things being traded, they already have a "name", but have not been identified. We do have entries on TBA and TBD. bd2412 T 15:52, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

The sense of name#Verb is clearly the common one of "specify, identify", so that alone does not justify inclusion. One possibly idiomatic sense of this is "something of little value", which follows in real life from the "pig in a poke" sense. DCDuring TALK 17:22, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

The sense of name#Verb is ambiguous. "Specify" and "identify" are unambiguous terms that could be used there in theory, but in practice are not. bd2412 T 03:21, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

I don't think it is at all ambiguous in the context in which this expression is used. A native speaker or journalistic or other popular writer would not use a polysyllabic Latinate term when name can be used without risk of any misunderstanding by the audience. DCDuring TALK 04:19, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

Many of these uses are really a snowclone that can either compare a deal to a sports trade, or change the context to that of a sports trade for humorous effect. The phrase "to be named later" is the key part. Chuck Entz (talk) 18:16, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

I think a snowclone with the degree of fixedness exhibited by to be named later, ie, no other inflected form, no substitution of synonyms for "named", uncommon substitution for later (at a later date, etc.), constitutes an idiom.

Move to to be named later. DCDuring TALK 18:26, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

Move and revise along the lines of pig in a poke per DCDuring. DAVilla 00:22, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

Since to be named later has already been created, I have redirected this title there and added an &lit sense to that definition. bd2412 T 03:35, 17 December 2013 (UTC)