Talk:tail between one's legs

Part of speech

adverb - A word that modifies a verb, adjective, other adverbs, or various other types of words, phrases, or clauses.

What does this term modify? It is obviously a NP.

Also, is it the best canonical form for this term? with one's tail between one's legs seems more legit. Moreover that would be our desired adverb

--Dixtosa-wikified me 12:43, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

User:TheDaveRoss removed a noun section a while ago, but this was erroneous: look at the citation that says "with his tail between his legs": evidently a noun and needs to be covered. Until we can split it up properly I have changed it to Phrase. Equinox ◑ 13:19, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

@Equinox That doesn't look like a noun to me. I think the tricky thing about this is that there is one idiom which has a number of very similar variants, "with one's tail between one's legs", and we attempted to find the lowest common denominator at "tail between one's legs" which is only really used as an elided form of "with one's tail between one's legs". "How did he come home? He came home with his tail between his legs". It still looks like an adverbial idiom to me. I support having the canonical entry be the "with one's" entry. - TheDaveRoss 12:57, 28 April 2023 (UTC)

It looks like everyone else classifies it as an idiom or a phrase, but the definitions are generally adjectival. I can see that being reasonable, I guess the phrase generally modifies a noun and not a verb. - TheDaveRoss 13:02, 28 April 2023 (UTC)

@TheDaveRoss: One more question before I "tea-room" it: suppose I say "the defeated football team crawled home with their tails between their legs". That sounds normal and idiomatic, doesn't it? We have pluralised something. Must be a noun? Equinox ◑ 16:19, 20 May 2023 (UTC)

@Equinox we often inflect portions of idioms so they match their context grammatically, I don't think this changes their parts of speech. The adverb with one's head held high becomes with their heads held high, the adjective quiet as a mouse becomes quiet as mice, etc. - TheDaveRoss 20:08, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

RFM discussion: October 2012–September 2014

The following discussion has been moved from Wiktionary:Requests for moves, mergers and splits (permalink).

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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tail between one's legs

Per talk page, isn't with one's tail between one's legs more grammatical? Mglovesfun (talk) 12:46, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Couldn't you say: "He has his tail between his legs."? --WikiTiki89 (talk) 13:01, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

(ec) The problem is, it can also be used as the object of have or have got: "to have one's tail between one's legs", "he's got his tail between his legs", etc., so with isn't an indispensable part of the idiom. —Angr 13:02, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps one's tail between one's legs? Mglovesfun (talk) 13:04, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

(one's) tail between one's legs is used as a modifer, both between commas and attributively with hyphens. There's also have one's tail between one's legs. Less common are other verbs like tuck, keep, put, and stick. Redirects and usage examples with the varied embodiments of the metaphor seem appropriate, not moving it. DCDuring TALK 13:12, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

[[one's tail between one's legs]] sounds good. Also, the definition is inadequate. --WikiTiki89 (talk) 13:16, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

(ec) Browsing through the b.g.c. hits, I also find "his tail between his legs" used in an absolute construction ("He went home, his tail between his legs, to face his family"), but with other verbs like tuck, keep, put, and stick, as well as in the phrase "his tail was between his legs", I'm only finding it being used literally of a dog, not in the figurative sense applied to a tailless bipedal primate. —Angr 13:25, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Doesn't that mean that "His tail between is between his legs." (or with any other form of to be) also exists? I can't seem to find anything on Google Books though. --WikiTiki89 (talk) 13:26, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Note, I had not seen Angr's edit when I wrote that. --WikiTiki89 (talk) 13:30, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

The entry says the PoS is an Adverb. It is a nominal that can be used in various ways. It might be best to call it a phrase. I have added a redirect from with one's tail between one's legs and an alt form entry at tail-between-one's legs. My feelings won't be hurt if they are deleted because the discussion leads to a resolution incompatible with them. DCDuring TALK 14:16, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

• Expired with no action. --Dan Polansky (talk) 07:47, 27 September 2014 (UTC)