Talk:two weeks notice

RFD discussion: February–April 2014

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two weeks notice

Sum of parts. SemperBlotto (talk) 14:53, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

Is that a reason for deletion? I didn't see that on Wiktionary:Criteria for inclusion or Wiktionary:Page deletion guidelines. At any rate, the phrase isn't "two weeks notice that I am quitting" or "two weeks notice that you are being fired", so the meaning is a bit more than the sum of the words.--Brainy J (talk) 15:59, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

An aside: am I the only one who sees this as ungrammatical? It should be two weeks' notice, right — like a hard day's work? Equinox ◑ 21:44, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

Well spotted. Donnanz (talk) 21:47, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

I've seen both two weeks' notice and two weeks notice widely used. --Brainy J (talk) 14:32, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

I don't find it ungrammatical. A hard day's work implies possession, the work belonging to the day. Two weeks notice is just a plural time period. There are plenty of citations for giving "a one week notice" for something (even if it is not understood to be termination of employment), so "two weeks notice" would merely be a plural of that. Granted, one could also say "two week's notice" in the "hard day's work" vein of formulation, but I don't think there's a right one and a wrong one. bd2412 T 14:37, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

I have to differ. Surely the equivalent of "a one-week notice" is "a two-week notice" (compare "a one-foot pole", "a two-foot pole"). Equinox ◑ 18:05, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

Not that you don't say "a week notice", but "a week's notice". --WikiTiki89 23:23, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

• Keep, by the way. It is idiomatic in that a person merely saying that they gave or were given "two weeks notice" is thereby indicating a change in their employment situation. bd2412 T 14:38, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

  And a person's merely saying he was given "a birthday noogie" is thereby indicating a change in his age. So? That's not part of the definition, or anything else that we, as a dictionary, need to concern ourselves with.​—msh210℠ (talk) 03:45, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

• Delete. See “two weeks notice”, in OneLook Dictionary Search., “two week's notice”, in OneLook Dictionary Search. and notice#Noun sense 4. We already have give notice, which arguably is idiomatic by reason of being a speech act.

  Grammatically two weeks is just attributive use of a noun phrase, which to me seems much better than a possessive/genitive, the notice not being in a relationship with two weeks such as "belonging to" or "consisting of". DCDuring TALK 15:12, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

  "Two weeks notice" can be used without using "give" at all. See, e.g.:

1. • 1945, Ruth Hunter, Come Back on Tuesday, page 91:

     Mr. Vivien must have seen this performance. The next night he came back with my two weeks' notice. bd2412 T 17:56, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

   • 1958, Edward G. Robinson, My Father, My Son: An Autobiography, p. 132:

     I bollixed up my lines and skipped two and half pages of dialogue, throwing everybody off. It was a real snafu. After the curtain came down, they shoved a little envelope in my hand. It was my two-weeks notice.

• bd2412 T 17:56, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

• Delete. This is not only used in employment. When you "give someone two week's notice", it could mean anything and not only that you are leaving your job. --WikiTiki89 23:23, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

  That sounds like an RfV issue, not an RfD issue. The definitions as set forth specify resignation from, or termination from, a job. bd2412 T 03:52, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

• Keep: Not SOP. Purplebackpack89 ^{(Notes Taken) (Locker)} 00:24, 8 February 2014 (UTC)
• Delete per nom — or redirect to [[notice]], where we have (and have had) this sense.​—msh210℠ (talk) 03:45, 19 February 2014 (UTC)
  • I would support such a redirect, although it would be nice to be able to redirect directly to sense four. Is that possible? bd2412 T 13:51, 20 February 2014 (UTC)
    • {{senseid}} works with redirects, if I correctly recall a test I did. DCDuring TALK 14:17, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Indeed it does. Click on two week's notice to see the user experience. "#REDIRECT[[notice#English-notice_of_termination_of_employment]]" achieves that result with "{{senseid|en|notice of termination of employment}}" at the beginning of the definition line. (I don't know whether it would work placed anywhere other than at the beginning.) DCDuring TALK 14:28, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

In that case, redirect per msh210. I think we're done here. bd2412 T 15:30, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

BTW, I think this is a good way of handling many near-idioms. It redirects English language learners to more basic building blocks of meaning rather than giving them prefab collocations. DCDuring TALK 16:47, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Redirected to notice. bd2412 T 20:28, 28 April 2014 (UTC)