Talk:threnody

Tea room discussion

Note: the below discussion was moved from the Wiktionary:Tea room.

Having initially removed a citation (Wendell Holmes) and having this reverted by a fellow editor, I'd like to see others having their say on this. Although the the work by Emerson obviously is a threnody, the fact that the only mention of this word is as the title of the poem blurs the value of this quote as a citation for the term. Am I being pedantic beyond reason here? __meco 15:27, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

If it were the only quote, then yes it would be of dubious value, since it would not be clear whether the meaning is bound up in the word itself. Howeveer, since there is another quote, I don't see that it does any harm, and does show that the word was used for the title of a poem on an appropriate theme for the word. --EncycloPetey 15:33, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes, Emerson called it "Threnody" because it is a threnody, and in the context of Holmes' quotation, in which Holmes explicitly says that Emerson's "Threnody" is a "lament" and the "tenderest and most pathetic of Emerson's poems", the meaning of the term threnody is illuminated. This quotation thus ably serves the main purpose of quotations—to illuminate meaning. I honestly believe that the entry is enriched by the presence of this quotation. -- WikiPedant 16:02, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

The problem is that titles are proper nouns, so while the quote may help to show something of the meaning of the word, it shows incorrect usage for the word itself. --EncycloPetey 16:12, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Hmm, interesting point, Petey. But is it fair? Any word or phrase can be capitalized and used as a title of a work. And I'd be inclined to argue that the meaning of a term is not abrogated or compromised by the fact that, by your nicely explicated criteria, that term graduates to proper noun-hood as soon as you make it a title of a work. After all, the term was selected by the author as an appropriate title because of the meaning it had back when it was a lowly common noun, and surely that meaning still carries through. -- WikiPedant 16:37, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

But it is still being used in an unusual way. If someone says "I enjoyed Stephen King's Misery," they mean something very different from "I enjoyed Stephen King's misery." It is easier to see in this example that the meaning has changed considerably. In the first example, Misery means "a particular book", but in the second example, it means "suffering". Changing a word into a title applies it to a specific entity as a name, and while it retains connotations and associations of the original word, it will no longer carry the same meaning. --EncycloPetey 16:55, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

In general I think that it's a bad idea to use proper nouns senses of words for examples of their common noun senses. The reason is that there is no guarantee that they coincide, in meaning or in grammar. I'm a bit torn in this case, as Threnody appears to be a threnody, both in meaning and in syntax. However, I can understand meco's point of view in removing a proper noun sense on principle. -Atelaes λάλει ἐμοί 17:11, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Though I agree with WikiPedant that this particular quote enriches the entry, on one hand, on the other hand there is an obfuscatory element because the word appears as a proper noun. I may write a short story called "Soliloquy" for its analogous bearing on the text, without the short story actually being a soliloquy. Similarly I may write a novel called "Short Story", which, again, obviously isn't a short story. It is this confounding situation which I believe we find ourselves in in relation to the threnody article, even though we here happen to have a work titled "Threnody" that also is a threnody. __meco 17:19, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

All the examples are valid, but much the same sorts of situations can occur with common nouns, which are widely subject to figurative and metaphorical usages. I guess my main point is that, common noun, proper noun, or whatever, no term defines itself, and the purpose of quotations is to supply a context which provides a sense of how the term has been and can be used (i.e., a sense of the meaning). That's the demand made of every expository quotation (i.e., that's the criterion of its appropriateness), and this quotation fulfills the demand. -- WikiPedant 19:29, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't suppose we can use footnotes in the articles, however, if we did, this would be an instance where that would be fitting. __meco 19:45, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. While there is some merit to the example, I would feel much safer if we noted the irregularity of it being a proper noun. -Atelaes λάλει ἐμοί 20:07, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

It'd be ridiculous to add a footnote to a quotation saying something like, "This quotation is sort of OK, but doesn't quite fill the bill." If measures like this are seriously being contemplated, it's better just to yank the quotation, so I have. I replaced it with a 20th-century quotation from an academic journal, which also illuminates the meaning. -- WikiPedant 22:09, 30 July 2008 (UTC)