Talk:race

"A progressive movement toward a goal": I don't see how this is a different meaning; can anyone give an example? Maybe this definition should be deleted?
The following two definitions (of racial identity) seem very hard to distinguish :
"A group of people believed to have common ancestors"
"A classification of human beings based on superficial traits such as skin color, and shape of facial features"
I don't know what one can manage in a dictionary (as distinct from am encyclopedia). People with green skins (to be non-controversial) would be deemed, by themselves and by others, to derive from distinct ancestry, And differences would be sought, or invented, between people believed to have common ancestry. E.g., people of Scottish descent are said to be mean with money, so if a Scot is mean, he will be taken as typical; if generous, he will be deemed to be an exception.
213.208.107.91 19:28, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

• 'I don't see how this is a different meaning'
  

Different from what? There are several apparently different definitions here.

• 'A progressive movement toward a goal.'
  

Perhaps it is different from a presidential race, in which only one can achieve the goal. (Although as in the first, only one can "cross the line first" and none of the rest can.)

• "A group of people believed to have common ancestors"
  

Since we each have a huge number of ancestors, we would each belong to as many races, so that definition does not make careful sense.

• "A classification of human beings based on superficial traits such as skin color, and shape of facial features"
  

Of course the connection between phenotypes and somatotypes is recognized, but unexplained by current genetic knowledge (Except for some limited codons to protein synthesis & metabolism).
So there might be (but isn't) a genetic basis for a definition of 'race', but especially with the explosion in transportation and number of humans, the social term 'race' can have no strict(objective) or even generally applicable meaning (possibly some statistical procedure?). Self-identification (also commonly used) is usually a cultural identification.
Perhaps some day the human species will recognize it as an historical artifact, like beheading.
Wikidity (talk) 16:28, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

Tea Room discussion

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race

What sense of "race" is used in phrases like "the human race", "a salve against the race of elves", "join the race of gods"? It isn't really "A large group of people distinguished from others on the basis of a common heritage", because it isn't always people, and group membership isn't always about heritage — I've added several quotations of the form "join the race of" to Citations:race. Incidentally, I also found a few thoroughly abstract uses like "join the race of faith" (apparently meaning "community"). - -sche (discuss) 20:02, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

What do you mean it isn't always people? All the examples you gave were people. The fantasy sense of "race" seems to be something like an informal name for subspecies. I pedantically could argue that the human race, Homo sapiens sapiens, is a subrace of Homo sapiens; in the mermaid cite, I would argue that it means "A large group of people distinguished from others on the basis of common physical characteristics" (that is, the people who don't have tails and don't breathe water); in many cases, it's a kickback against meanings 1-3, implying there is no meaningful large group of people distinguishable from others on the basis of common inherited physical characteristics. (#2 is not quite an accurate definition, as the fact is that if your parents were the same race (#2), you will be considered the same race.)

I'd almost make senses 1-3 subsenses of one sense and add a fantasy sense to include elves and gods and whatnot.--Prosfilaes (talk) 07:08, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

I'm confused by your first comment ("All the examples you gave were people")... as you note later, several of the citations I added pertain to elves / gods, not people. I do think it seems to be synonymous with "species" (why do you say subspecies?), though our current relevant definition (sense 1) of [[species]] needs improvement. Modifying your "common physical characteristics" idea slightly, "A large group whose members are distinguished from nonmembers by common attributes" (such as divinity in the case of a "race of gods") seems like a good definition.

I've added another citation, this one discussing an extraterrestrial race.

Re combining senses 1-3: dictionary.com separates a sense "a group of peoples" ("the Slavic race") from "a people with a common history" ("the Dutch race"), which seems even stranger than our current separation of 1-3. I do think we could have a general sense like "A group distinguished by common characteristics", and make all of the other senses (human, animal, 'fantasy' etc) into subsenses of it. - -sche (discuss) 07:55, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Elves are people. Whether gods are people or not is more complex, but on the mortal realm, I'm sure I can find cites showing that most sapient creatures have been people. I'd be interested to see cites showing that elves, Vulcans and Wookies aren't people.

The conception of elves as a race that can interbreed with humans and produce fertile offspring certainly makes them subspecies in the modern biological sense, though that gets a little silly in settings that have dragons and angels interbreeding with humans.

I think your new definition is still missing the concept of heritability. The one thing virtually all definitions of race is that if your parents are of a race, you will be too. (Occasional sci-fi sudden mutation, and bad science 'throwbacks', like the concept that Downs syndrome was a reversion to Mongolism, aside.) "by common inherited attributes", perhaps.--Prosfilaes (talk) 09:23, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

A race was originally thought of as a large group of people sharing a common ancestry (in a broader sense), with characteristics stemming from that common ancestry- in other words, a different "kind" of people (this even applies to cases like "the Anglo-Saxon race").

In cases like elves and gods, the concept of "people" is broadened to include such beings. In traditional racist views, other races are held to be an inherently inferior kind of people, just barely people, with terms reminiscent of animals being used for gender and other subcategories: a male might be a buck or a brave, a female might be a squaw, a child might be a pappoose or a pickaninny.

The idea of characteristics beyond superficial ones like skin color and facial structure being different between races has pretty much been debunked, but I think the modern senses refer back to the original idea, even if there's disagreement with part of the basic premise.

I think most of the "join the..." senses should be metaphorical rather than literal (though I haven't looked through them, so I could be wrong). As for the "race of faith", that brings to mind the metaphor of running a race that Paul used in the Christian New Testament. In the case of "joining the race of gods" I think that's a magical transformation of "kind", much as one might be magically transformed into another species, such as a frog- an exception to the rules, not an example of them. Chuck Entz (talk) 19:28, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

people

Elves are not people! People exist, elves don't! Mglovesfun (talk) 09:30, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, we currently (correctly) define "people" as "a body of human beings", and "person" as "an individual human"... which an elf is not. - -sche (discuss) 06:42, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

They've been called the Little People for a long time. BGC turns up "Because if it was true, the elf-people would help her.", and "The clever Elf people had been very busy with the mountain- peak to make it elegant", "the little people who help Santa Claus to make Christmas toys are elves" and "A Natural History of Elves: The Hidden People of Iceland and the Arctic Circle", "Elves, people of the woods and waters, celebrate and protect the natural beauty of Middle Earth." and ""My people call me Nir," said the elf.". Beyond elves, we have "A bug is an insect, sweetheart. The Thranx" (giant alien bugs) "are not insects. They're people, just like you and me, and they're supposed to be very smart." and "“Really, Char Mormis,” he observed in the delightfully musical voice of the thranx, “inhospitality is hardly the mark of a successful businessman. I am disappointed. And this looking for a hidden weapon on my person." and "The quintessential Klingon person, of course, is the warrior, and there are several words for “warrior.” " and "As soon as I started creating the Klingon crew. the absolute first person I wanted in there was Leskit because he was a snide. obnoxious Klingon. which is never simple."

A large swath of science fiction has been engaged in proving that just because someone is covered in scales and has a tail, doesn't mean they're not a person, so I'm sure I can find an endless stream of quotes from that direction.

(In contrast, of course, is "I realized that it wasn't a person sitting on the root of that tree—it was an elf.")--Prosfilaes (talk) 08:58, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

I see no reason why we should accommodate fictional universes in this way. There is no common word characterizing people that cannot characterize fictional near-people or characterizing animals that cannot characterize fictional near-animals or characterizing vehicles, or clothing, or devices....

If someone would like to document what has or has not actually been imagined to exist in such fictional universes, that might be an interesting wiki. It could probably even be a money-making proposition. DCDuring TALK 10:35, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

I think you're missing the point; the original point was that this sense of race doesn't only apply to human beings. Elves was one of the initial examples given, up couldn't it also apply to non-human animals like dogs or cats or whatever. Mglovesfun (talk) 10:52, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

RFV discussion: February–March 2019

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race

"Travels, runs, or journeys", given as a singular noun sense. Equinox ◑ 12:21, 2 February 2019 (UTC)

Maybe this was intended to cover poetic "his race is run" (he is dead / retired / whatever) quotes? But the preceding sense seems to be the one that's really intended to cover that. As an aside, I tweaked the "swift progress, rapid motion" sense a bit so that it's a better counterpart to verb def 3 (move rapidly). - -sche (discuss) 05:43, 4 February 2019 (UTC)

RFV-failed Kiwima (talk) 21:59, 7 March 2019 (UTC)

Humankind

humanity considered as a whole
the fate of the race 
Microsoft® Encarta® 2009

--Backinstadiums (talk) 11:51, 14 January 2020 (UTC)