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Kept

Encyclopedic? —Vildricianus 21:24, 1 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

As Connel says, there was no community consensus to delete. So, despite having no view either way (how could I, the entry was gone), I restored it. Let's have consensus before hasty action. Also, the reason for deletion was something like (Page 2yr old + ). Since when does a page being 2 years old justify deleting it ! And it was last added to in Feb 2006 anyway. --Richardb 16:48, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Keep - Since there are 34,400 Ghits, 682 GBhits for Lincolnesque, I think Abrhama Lincoln should stay just to support the entry for Lincolnesque, which I have just created !--Richardb 16:48, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

IMO this only supports a definition for Lincoln as 1. Abraham Lincoln, President of.... Unless it is used in unrelated contexts, the full name is still encyclopedic.Davilla 16:56, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Apology - Yeah, Abe is as big as The Beatles anyday. --Dangherous 21:15, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm pretty sure this compound is not an idiom but that the three terms vintage, veteran, and classic all simply have a special specific sense when used of a car. So vintage car, vintage automobile, vintage motorcar,, etc don't all require an entry, instead just one under vintage:

Adjective

vintage

  1. foo
  2. bar
  3. (cars) Built between xxx and yyy.

Hippietrail 21:38, 2 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've done a search on Google Books and there are indeed many hits for "truck", "automobile", "vehicle", "motorcycle", "motorbike", etc. It's also quite common to use the adjectives in all kinds of ways with the nouns, such as "Is this car a vintage or a veteran?". — Hippietrail 21:50, 2 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, three whole hits for "vintage motorcycle." When you ignore the fact that there is an order of magnitude more hits for vintage car than for "truck," "automobile" or "vehicle," you end up missing the relevant detail: vintage car is a set phrase (especially in comparison.) Your idiomacy test is certainly irrelevant, in cases like this. KEEP. --Connel MacKenzie T C 06:06, 3 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Connel, I don't know how you are doing your searches. I get 62 hits for the singular and 39 for the plural. And you must know as well as anybody that Google searches can only prove how common a phrase is, not how set it is. Wiktionary has many rare words which none of us would dispute that would find few Google hits, while Googles finds an order of magnitude more hits for the plain old old car than what you present as evidence for vintage car. Have you forgotten the Pawley list? — Hippietrail 16:02, 3 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. Widsith 07:52, 3 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
delete. While I agree with Connel that this is a set phrase, Hippietrail's solution for dealing with it seems more appropriate, given that "car" isn't always the base noun. --EncycloPetey 09:34, 3 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, m:Wiki is not paper; there's no reason that we can't have a seperate article because we COULD merge it into vintage. What if people are looking for the definition of "vintage car?" Can we expect them to know that what they're looking for is at vintage? Should we delete all derived terms using this rationale? --Rory096 09:42, 3 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
So are you suggesting that we add the terms vintage airplane, vintage motorcycle, vintage house, vintage teapot, vintage wine, and every other combination that could use the term "vintage"? --EncycloPetey 09:47, 3 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
If they're widely used terms, yes. m:Wiki is not paper. --Rory096 03:51, 7 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Application of Pawley list conveniently overlooked by Connel in this case:
    • 11: Inseparability of constituents: Insertion of other material changes the unity or naturalness of a phrasal lexeme
      Google Books finds: vintage HolmanMoody cars, vintage sports cars, vintage railroad cars, Vintage muscle car, vintage race car, vintage touring car, vintage British sports car, vintage American car, vintage or replica car, vintage racing cars, vintage l960s muscle cars, etc. 1,160 hits in all. Regular Google gets 3,040,000 hits.
    • 18: Invariable constituents or grammatical frame
      With Google books I could find: The car was vintage, sports cars with a vintage 1930s look, vintage-replica kit cars, The car was vintage, one of those high-finned atrocities.
    • And what about entirely missing components!:
      a nice vintage Chevy, in their vintage Ford, a vintage cherry red Mustang convertible, Has the vintage Ferrari world gone crazy?, almost a vintage model Chevrolet, Nikki's vintage Honda Accord, on either side of the vintage Pontiac, A few other cars were there : older models-vintage Fords, Plymouths and Dodges.
  • What on Earth are you talking about? The Pawley list is an OR list, not an AND list. A lexeme doesn't need to meet all the criteria, only meet any one. --Connel MacKenzie T C 01:50, 5 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    In this case, please show us how the many other terms suggested fail the Pawley test. And please show to us how this highly variable phrase is a set phrase. You've already shown us you can compare numbers which is an entirely different and unuseful thing. — Hippietrail 02:07, 5 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Delete per HT. —Vildricianus 15:42, 5 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Hippietrail, are you suggesting that your inability to comprehend "OR" is a useful thing? Here in America, vintage car is a set phrase. The other, perhaps, but to a lesser degree. That's wasn't your question though.
  • This passes the very first Pawley rule for including a term.
  • Now for things other than cars, the date range (you did read the definition at vintage car right? Did you check Vintage car too?) can't really apply, can it? Vintage clothing wouldn't be clothing made before 1931, would it? Would Elvis' vintage guitar be that old as well? Certainly, one peek at Vintage and you'll agree that vintage wine is not going to refer to wines made between 1919 and 1930!
  • KEEP. --Connel MacKenzie T C 07:29, 7 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. BTW, this is a set phrase in UK too. As someone with a passing interest in old vehicles, I am aware (partly because of the famous annual [London to Brighton Veteran Car Run] which, like many, I used to wrongly call a vintage car rally) that veteran car, vintage car and classic car refer to cars in very specific age ranges, and I would expect to look the phrases up in a dictionary if I wanted to know what those age ranges were. PS: where can I find the Pawley list? Enginear 12:25, 7 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • It seems some people here do not understand what a set phrase is. I've given ample evidence here of the variability of this phrase.
    • Encarta states:

      unvarying expression: a phrase which does not vary and whose meaning is different from the literal combination of its parts, e.g. "the apple of somebody's eye" or "make waves"

    • Our own definition is somewhat softer and I might point out that it was written by Connel:

      A common phrase whose words cannot be replaced by synonymous words without losing some meaning.

    Interestingly, the online AHD, Collins, M-W, and even Wikipedia don't define what a set phrase is. Connel, besides basing his criteria on a term he wrote his own definition for, also conveniently overlooks all of my examples which clearly refer to cars or vehicles with various degrees of similarity to cars. I 100% agree that "vintage" has a set meaning when referring to cars. I agree that the non-vehicle examples refer to other senses of "vintage". I do not agree that "vintage car" is set - it is variable:
    • When you insert a word between "vintage" and "car" you are no longer using a set phrase, indeed you are no longer using a phrase: vintage sports cars, vintage race car, etc, etc.
      "make big waves" => make waves is not a set phrase => contradiction => this test is invalid. Davilla
      You're a little too terse for me to understand clearly. It seems you have shown that "to make waves" is not a set phrase. That could be true. It is however still a figurative expression. Compare with "kick the big bucket" => kick the bucket. — Hippietrail 19:23, 8 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      Sorry for the technical rigor of the above logic. Let me explain. I did not show that make waves is not a set phrase. It was your assumption, and mine, and probably everyone's here, that make waves is a set phrase, as probably one of the clearest examples of one. However, your claim that, as I understand it, "the ability to insert a word makes the phrase variable rather than set" is invalid. My example of "make big waves" exposes this weakness. Davilla 20:24, 9 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • When you move the adjective from before the noun and connect them another way, "vintage" still has the same meaning, but you no longer have the "set phrase". Indeed you no longer have the phrase at all: sports cars with a vintage 1930s look, vintage-replica kit cars, etc.
      "all the waves you're making" => as above make waves is not a set phrase => contradiction => this test is invalid. Davilla
      As above. Compare with "the bucket you are kicking". — Hippietrail 19:23, 8 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      As above. "Why did I quit smoking? Well, when it comes to kicking things, I prefer bad habits to buckets." Set phrases can be manipulated, and this test is invalid. Davilla
    • When you take away the word "car" and insert a make or model of car, you no longer have a set phrase, yet you are using the same sense of "vintage": vintage Ford, vintage Rolls-Royce, etc, etc, etc.
      This was refuted below. Davilla by Enginear with an example of a type of car that was considered "vintage", but not a "vintage car". Davilla 20:24, 9 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      Where? By whome? Please try to be less terse and more clear. — Hippietrail 19:23, 8 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • When you use a synonym instead of the word "car", you are no longer using a set phrase yet "vintage" has the same meaning: vintage motor-car, vintage automobile, etc.
      This has been established as a reasonable test, and it seems very persuasive. It's too bad which test to use has not been decided upon. Thus a gray area is exposed. Davilla 18:52, 8 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      I think these are traps that we untrained amateur lexicographers easily and naturally fall into. We need to formulate a set of tests rather than trying to blindly apply one we don't fully understand. I hope this discussion brings us further to that goal. — Hippietrail 19:23, 8 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    It is 100% clear that "vintage" when referring to any type of car in any ways means that it was built between 1919 and 1930. It is 100% clear that there is no set terms besides "vintage", nor set order in which to use them for this sense to apply.
    As far as I am aware, Wiktionary includes set phrases but does not do anything like "selecting the most common way of expressing a variable phrase and using that phrase as an entry".
    If vintage car is a set phrase, so is used car, vintage Ford, vintage sports car, and vintage automobile. Which Pawley test do they fail? If none of them fail do we include them all and many more? Do we add Connel's idea of using Google to pick the most common the our criteria for inclusion?
    It would be nice in addittion if Connel could restrain from rhetoric, emotion, and talking down to people when responding and just stick to the points and facts in normal language. — Hippietrail 00:19, 8 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    I would use the same examples, with the same criterion, to argue the opposite conclusion: used car = pre-owned car; vintage Ford = Star Wars (cf classic Ford = Raiders of the Lost Ark), etc. Seriously, even though I am not directly involved in the world of very old cars, I do understand that vintage car is a quasi-controlled phrase relating to cars from an exact date range, while in the phrases vintage Ford, vintage sports car, vintage automobile, etc, vintage merely means early 20th century. --Enginear 02:27, 8 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Now if anybody can find some evidence of what User:Enginear says here, I would certainly go along with it, as long as we are doing so in full understanding of what a set phrase is. — Hippietrail 02:30, 8 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    See, eg, [[1]] which page uses vintage in the following ways:
    Vintage Jaguar Racer: a V12 E-type (approx 1960s)
    It's so strange to think of cars like this as vintage: about the E-type
    Vintage cars are 1912-1930 (with link to a dictionary definition)
    You're not any more vintage than that lovely Jag, and to call a 1970's Can-Am porker a 'Vintage' nearly made me choke
    Brock is quite right about the vintage car definition, but I'm in no hurry to correct it as most vintage races here in America allow the definition to be 30 years old or something like that. There may be hope, though, as some events are now billing themselves as 'Historic Races' rather than vintage.
    The phrase vintage car(s) is tightly defined (note agreement between US & UK posters), but the use of vintage about cars in other phrases varies between different posters, with one holding to the tight definition in his general usage and mentioning irritation with its use for a 30 yr old car, another moving towards the tight definition but noting that many others in US differ in general use, and of course the original poster referring to a Vintage Jaguar only 40 yrs old.
    This was literally the first page I found (other than insurance co websites) when searching for definition "vintage car". It supports my assertion admirably, which is convenient since I haven't time to search further today. I'm sure other cases can be found which "prove the rule" but I believe the majority will show that vintage car is normally strictly defined, while other combinations are normally laxer. --Enginear 04:51, 8 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oddly, the example you've chosen is actually very mixed:
    1. "Vintage Jaguar Racer"
      The adjective alone, general (American) sense.
    2. "It's so strange to think of cars like this as vintage:"
      The adjective alone in the "1912-1930" (British) sense, without the noun.
    3. "Vintage cars are 1912-1930"
      The full phrase in the "1912-1930" sense, in the context of a definition.
    4. "You're not any more vintage than that lovely Jag"
      Adjective alone, this is a play on at least 3 senses including the wine sense.
    5. "and to call a 1970's Can-Am porker a 'Vintage' nearly made me choke"
      The adjective alone in the "1912-1930" sense, without the noun.
    6. "most vintage races here in America allow the definition to be 30 years old or something like that"
      The adjective alone in a sense characterized as "American" by an apparently American writer explaining to a non-American audience.
    7. "some events are now billing themselves as 'Historic Races' rather than vintage."
      The adjective alone in a sense open to interpretation but to me is the "1912-1930" sense, without the noun.
    To sum up, it appears that the people who use "vintage" about cars are aware of it is used in both a general sense and a precise sense, it further seems that those who use the precise sense do not approve of the general sense - when it is applied to cars. Furthermore, when defining the terms in the precise sense the people here use the whole phrase "vintage car" and no version of that with synonyms appears. If this were our entire corpus on which to base our definitions we would definitely need to cover both the general and precise senses of the adjective as applied to cars, and we would probably also want to define the phrase as a set phrase with only the precise sense and tag it as a British sense. This corpus includes no evidence on "vintage" used in either sense for other types of vehicles, or in a phrase with any synonym for "car". A larger corpus is needed to draw useful conclusions.
    It may prove more useful to analyse the usage of "veteran" as applied to vehicles vs. "veteran car" as a set phrase, as this term is significantly rarer and does not have a prominent general sense. — Hippietrail 17:41, 8 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Clearly there should be a meaning of vintage as the word relates to cars. Whether vintage car is a set phrase is not a matter that I've been swayed to agree or disagree with thus far. Certainly it passes the Pawley test based on the first criterion. Does the fact that "vintage car" refers to only a car from that date range, that is, a specific meaning of vintage, rather than any other meaning, make it a set phrase? That would be a good reason not to include vintage Jaguar as a set phrase, as per the above, but it might open the door for additional terms. As to my own criteria, I would guess it should be included for auto enthusiasts for whom the term conjures a single image. vintage auto I believe fails the criteria I use as a meaning mentally derived from its parts, even for auto enthusiasts. But not being one myself, I don't really know. Davilla 18:52, 8 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This seems to be a tricky case. It's certainly possible for a set phrase to coexist along with special senses of some of its component parts when they relate to one another. Disentangling the two is hard work but hopefully we can get there and in the end come up with some tests we can apply to future submissions. I think proper research would involve examining vintage car literature to see whether usages such as "vintage motorcycle", "vintage sports car", "vintage Model T Ford", "vintage automobile", "this daimler is a veteran rather than a vintage" are actually used by the community who hold to the precise sense. Of course such would be original research, but we don't worry so much about that as over at Wikipedia. — Hippietrail 19:23, 8 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I think I agree with both of you (D & Ht) on all points (and most doubts) in the three edits above, except for one anal quible: on the (very limited) evidence, the precise sense of vintage car is only chiefly UK, since the US enthusiast recognised the sense and intended to follow it in future [also w:History_of_the_automobile#Vintage_era appears US written but includes the dates "1919 through 1929"].
Having read the Pawley list yesterday for the first time, my head's swimming, and I need to do a lot more listening before I discuss it. Meanwhile, I welcome D's personal criteria which I would reduce to "Is the entry useful?" -- too "soft" to settle arguments, but a reminder of where any formal criteria should be leading us. By chance, I picked up a paper today and saw a cartoon with an E-type Jag being discussed by two women: It's nice but it's got "old man" written all over it. It made me realise I'm "all vintaged out" so I may give this topic a miss for a bit and get on with some words closer to my heart. --Enginear 21:47, 8 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The difference between UK and US illustrate for certainty that the term falls under Pawley criterion number one and gives a lot of sway to its inclusion. Davilla 19:58, 9 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree. In my analysis, there is a clear difference between the term vintage when used of motor cars between the UK and US, nothing is clear as to whether vintage car is also a set phrase. — Hippietrail 20:05, 9 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree with your analysis.
Would it be helpful if I replaced "set phrase" with "common phrase" in my first comment above? Applying the Pawley tests might be less confounding for you then...applying the first test in the Pawley list clearly shows a reson this term should be included in Wiktionary. As do tests 2, 3, 4, possibly 5, 11, possibly 18, and 22. Of course, passing any single test from the list should be reason enough to include the entry.
--Connel MacKenzie T C 20:48, 9 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Please use , rather than {,} when excluding the comma could lead to ambiguity. Davilla 19:26, 11 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The problem with either a) the Pawley list, or b) the way we have been applying it so far, is that phrases such as dirty car, old car, and wrecked car also seem to pass #1 but don't seem to be idioms. A second problem is that it provides no reason for accepting vintage car and not vintage motorcar or vintage automobile or vintage sports car. It certainly gives no suggestion that number of occurrences as Google would provide would be a valid arbitrator as we know that there exist both set phrases and idioms which are rare and common phrases which are neither set phrases nor idioms. I don't think we've done enough to investigate this list or the details of using it. I have tried to contact its author but as yet he has not replied. — Hippietrail 21:08, 9 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
This is certainly enlightening. As Hippietrail points out, the first Pawley criterion is too broad. Unless it can be suitably reworded so that it is not too inclusive, I would reserve it for use soley when there are regional variations in word choice.
It had not occurred to me before that Pawley number 2 is too broadly written as well. Any noun could be modified make a noun phrase that is a type of the same. This should be restricted as follows. For the term A to be considered a type of B under this rule, B cannot be synonymous with X where A syntactically contains X, nor can both A and B be types of X, nor X (in addition to A) a type of B. In our case the only choice for X is "car", and the fact that a vintage car is a type of automobile, a type of old car, or a type of motorized vehicle does not merit its inclusion under this rule.
vintage car does not satisfy rule number 5. I don't see how it could satisfy number 18.
I vote to keep this phrase as it satisfies Pawley #4 presumably, #3 probably, and #18 #22 certainly. (As noted above, it also satisfies my own intuition for what a "set phrase" is.) Davilla 19:26, 11 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Made a minor modification above. Pawley #2 allows ice cream as a type of frozen desert. Davilla 11:00, 13 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Delete--Richardb 08:16, 29 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

No more than the sum of its parts, and encyclopedic. Under vintage you can define the usage of vintage as it applies to cars. And you can have a link to the Wikipedia entry. I don't see it as a set phrase at all, any more than "electric car".

Sole content is you cannot judge a man by just looking at his appearence.--Richardb 12:58, 6 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The relevant quote is: Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society. --Mark Twain [2] This might be worth keeping for the Phrasebook. Opinions? --EncycloPetey 15:42, 6 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Agree with EP: the Twain quote is definitely worthy of the Phrasebook -- first time I've seen it in full, and now it finally makes sense to me, typical of his wit -- but delete the "...don't..." misquote. Enginear 13:24, 7 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Have added the witty Twain quote (not the "clothes don't..." quote) to w:Mark Twain. --Enginear 23:46, 7 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
clothes don't make the man is not worthy of the phrasebook. Maybe in Category:English phrases tho. --Dangherous 13:33, 7 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I went looking for (but couldn't find) a similar phrase I've heard from another language. I thought I remembered it from Hungarian, but haven't been able to find it there, so it might be Polish or Croat. The literal translation is "The hood/cowl does not make the monk", but it conveys the same meaning as the English phrase being discussed. --EncycloPetey 13:51, 7 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Sound like a perfect nomination for {{TOW}}. --Connel MacKenzie T C 19:46, 7 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It's Latin – cucullus non facit monachum. It's been used in English too; see Chaucer (‘For habit makeþ no monk’), and also Shakespeare, ‘all hoods make not monks’, from Henry VIII. Widsith 19:21, 7 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, but I mean I've seen it in a modern European language book -- the kind that includes phrases and idioms along with the usual vocabulary. The period in my life during which I recall having seen it was when I was dabbling in Hungarian, Polish, and Croat (and studying Dutch). However, it does make sense that there would be a Latin source for the idiom. --EncycloPetey 19:34, 7 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Odd, nobody seems to have mentioned that English does have the proverb (or is it some other kind of saying?), "Clothes make the man". The one discussed here seems to be a play on it. The standard opposite is "You can't judge a book by it's cover". There are dictionaries that deal just with these - I don't know the details but we of course should carry the standard ones. I don't see any point on carry interesting plays on words based on them though. Delete and move to WikiQuote. — Hippietrail 23:39, 7 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. Keep it and its negation as Phrasebook entries. The proper Dictionary entry is the idiomatic portion, make the man. Davilla 20:26, 9 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep --Richardb 15:55, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    Having nominated the phrase, I now researach it. About 22,000 Ghits, 110 GBhits. Seems to be a commonly used phrase, and just as commonly refuted. Worth keeping. Is this an aphorism. Do we have a category for aphorisms ? IF not, i'll start one.

I'm confused over whether place names are valid or not - CFI offers no clear guidance. Jonathan Webley 18:40, 7 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

From what I gather, every single place name in the world (and probably in the universe) is theoretically "allowed". Just that their addition is of low priority. --Newnoise (Shout louder) 18:58, 7 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. Leeds Castle is really cool. --Connel MacKenzie T C 19:45, 7 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
keep, but it's too bad there isn't an etymology. We should probably think about what minimum content should be desirable (maximum is easier to figure out). For example, it would be nice if each city or similarly-sized place has latitude and longitude (eventually). Is there some place where a discussion of this sort is ongoing, or where it could be started? --EncycloPetey 20:07, 7 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, you can start a discussion in the Beer parlour if you like.
It's questionable whether we would want this - are the coordinates of a place encyclopedic or an essential part of the definition? They certainly pinpoint the place, so you could say that they do aid the definition: for example, "A place in England", which could be London, Newcastle, Dover or Penzance or any other, and indeed is more or less the definition of many of the placenames in England in Wiktionary, would become "A place in England at <insert coordinates here>", which can only be the place being defined. On the other hand, adding coordinates to "The capital of England and the United Kingdom" as the definition of London does not add anything to the definition (as the definition as it stands already has a unique referent) and so the coordinates would be superfluous there. (Incidentally, this is why I am against including populations, state capitals, etc, to definitions of placenames, as these constitute encyclopedic information that does not contribute to the definition and is usually already found in Wikipedia in any case. Furthermore, populations are almost always out of date and hence incorrect. — Paul G 10:23, 11 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I agree about population, as per my rant on numbers as definitions and often impossible numerical accuracy. Coordinates I'm not fond of, not so much for this reason as I'm not convinced smaller cities deserve entries. Capitals of nations are important because they are often used as metonyms synecdoches. Other cities have to be cited out of context, e.g., "I'd like to grow old in Chicago so I can remain politically active when I'm dead." In fact I recently deleted Lincoln in Nebraska and a few other places, and I'm waiting for feedback to trim more. The largest cities we could take on good faith to be cited out of context. Davilla
Population can sometimes be a relative measure, but isn't the sort of data we should encourage...a link to Wikipedia should suffice in most situations. General geographical location I'd think would be very relevant to pronunciation, etymology and the conotations associated with a name. But when associations do exist, it is blatantly wrong to remove them. On the other hand, there is nothing harmful about having entries for place names; arguments against including them are contrived or otherwise belabored. --Connel MacKenzie T C 17:33, 13 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - --Richardb 15:34, 12 May 2006 (UTC) If it has no translations, then it has no real value here. (And this despite the fact that I went to Leeds University). But hold on, it does have a useful link to the very obscure word Leodensian (a word I never heard in 3 years in Leeds!). And translations of sorts to Leodis and Hledes, so I change my vote to Keep.[reply]
Keep but agree with EP that etymologies of old place names are fascinating, and IMO the most important reason to put them in a dictionary (translations being second). For example, why are there no Roman names still in use in London, only (a very few) older and most younger. Again, Redriff Road (Cattle wharf road) in Rotherhythe (Cattle wharf) (in London) comes about because at the (later) time the road was built, the old word Rotherhythe was pronounced something like ɹəɾɹf and the road name was then spelt phonetically, rather than traditionally. Similarly, Piddletown in Dorset relates to "piddle", the old Dorset word for a stream (no I don't know which was the original meaning). They're not top of my list to add, but they're not far down. Re coordinates, etc, why not just a link to an online map? --Enginear 00:46, 13 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Its a lovely-sounding word, is Rinderkennzeichnungs- und Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz, and the law seems to exist. But is it Wiktionary material? The "- und " bit looks suspect to me. --Newnoise (Shout louder) 18:29, 9 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

From the talk page of that entry:

Hi, didn't find the entry on Wiktionary:Requests for deletion, so I'll make my comment here: according to the en- and de-Wikipedias, this law was indeed proposed, but finally given a different name. Because of its length and superfluous complexity (typical of German legal terms), it was considered for "word of the year" in 1999 by a German Language Society: http://www.gfds.de/woerter.html Hope that helps, --89.53.217.237 15:07, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

@Newnoise: The "- und " is a method to make it shorter, because the name would be "Rinderkennzeichnungsgesetz und Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz", this is typically German - it stands for Gesetz in the second word. Greetings Pill δ 17:56, 10 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. Ncik 19:25, 10 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm with the visiting de: Wiktionary bureaucrat...Keep. --Connel MacKenzie T C 02:30, 11 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't really get it. Surely it's 3 words, not one? Widsith 07:44, 11 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know our CFI well enough, but personally I would think it relevant whether the law was notable. To take examples of legislation I know, I would defend an entry for the UK Disability discrimination act 2005 which has produced a major shakeup in attitudes to provision for those "living with disabilities" in UK (to the extent where I have just revised the "" from my original text "disabled") but, even though we are not paper, I would abstain or even vote against Town and country planning (fees for applications and deemed applications) (amendment) (England) regulations 2006 which merely noted an annual rise in the fees generally in line with inflation.
And I would only defend a superseded name for a law (as the one under discussion) if it was well known (perhaps notable) before the name change.
Of course (vide Widsith) if one of the words in the title was notable on its own account, that word would be worthy of an entry. (I am currently looking out for a word I found about 40 yrs ago in a long-lost 1920s-vintage German dictionary, for which I can only remember the literal translation "back-forward current right going putter". I feel that is a wonderful example of a German descriptive word. The modern word is, I think, das Rektifier, which is somewhat lacking in comparison.) --Enginear 13:48, 11 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
"Notability" is not a criteria for inclusion here on en.wiktionary.org. But this word is attested. The fact that it is more than one word is certain to bother one of our main contributors out of hand, but nevertheless, this strongly meets our criteria for inclusion. Even if there were doubts, the reasonable people to ask would be our German counterparts. Considering that not one, but two of de.wiktionary.org's bureaucrats assert that this is a valid term, it is more than silly to be entertaining this RFD nomination as anything more than a joke. --Connel MacKenzie T C 02:00, 14 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

@Widsith: It is 3 words in one :) People spell it this way and they pronounce it this way. Believe me or don't believe me, believe English and German Wikipedia or don't do so. I don't want to argue about the existence or non-existence of the word. It exists and I like it a lot (it's pretty funny, we even have got an audio file for) that's why I created this entry here. Greetings Pill δ 13:30, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Fair enough. It seems like a bit of a trivia entry to me, but there's no reason not to have it. Widsith 16:06, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Keep - This is a real word, has a notable history, is notable in and of itself, and we have to have some space in Wiktionary for a little bit of amusement.--Richardb 15:03, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You've convinced me: keep. --Enginear 00:59, 13 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Which "Pawley test" does this word pass? --Newnoise (Shout louder) 11:37, 14 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Not sure. Ruled as a keeper though. ∂ανίΠα 14:53, 13 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Idiomatic: just means "the wheels of a skateboard". — Paul G 10:14, 11 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Not idiomatic. Delete Davilla 18:41, 11 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Is that true when you call your board your "wheels" (=mode of transportation)?
    This is irrelevant. See wheels. That meaning is covered and not objected to. Davilla
  • Can you put bicycle wheels on a skateboard, or skateboard wheels on a bicycle?
    No, it's not recommended, probably not even possible. But what's you're point? Wheels that are designed for bicycles are called "bicycle wheels". When I see that term I don't think, "Oh, maybe I could use those on my skateboard." Davilla
Seems like it has several, very common, specialized meanings, to me.
IMO this is the only relevant point you've brought up. The problem is the term simply isn't idiomatic. Things less common than the wheel are designed for certain purposes. Can you use tires designed for an SUV on your economy car? Should Wiktionary simply assume that people don't know how to think? Davilla 15:05, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

--Connel MacKenzie T C 19:10, 11 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

As someone who knows little about skateboarding or its jargon, I'd be interested to see the specialised meanings before passing judgement, but at present I only know it as a non-idiomatic phrase obvious from the sum of its parts. (Whatever Pawley says, is it useful to include it, and if not, should we consider changing our CFI which, from previous posts, I assume follows Pawley?)
I'd also question the inclusion of "resilient polyurethane" in the definition. If wheels for skateboards are made of another material, are they called something else? --Enginear 22:33, 11 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Unfortunately (in my opinion), this passes the Pawley naming rule which Connel and some others feel extremely strongly about though I'm not sure its ramifications were ever fully discussed. The wheels, tyres, and other components of various vehicles and other devices are sufficiently different that people would rightly use such mundane naming strategies. That such mundane combinations goes counter to my intuition and apparently that of the compilers of the majority of print dictionaries. The fact that some people here, without consulting the compilers of those dictionaries, declare at every opportunity that the only reason they don't include them is only lack of space, I find unhelpful in the extreme. That people keep nominating these terms for deletion and that others keep entering them, makes it obvious to me that neither opinion is the only one and that we should keep open or inclusion criteria for further discussion. — Hippietrail 19:51, 11 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Actually this doesn't even pass Pawley IMO, save the broader interpretations of Pawley 1 and 2 that you and I rejected at vintage car. The strongest claim it makes is Pawley 3, what I've termed the fried egg test. But it doesn't pass this test if you consider that anyone who has seen a skateboard is going to know what the wheels look like as well. Davilla 22:50, 13 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yes that's why I've tried to open up discussion on how valid the Pawley list is for us, or perhaps just the way we've been interpreting it so far. I believe in developing our own criteria and tests taking Pawley and whatever other factors into account. To my analysis, fried egg may be a set phrase, and is useful in a translating dictionary, but is not idiomatic. What happened instead is that we confused the semantics of frying an egg for an idiom since the same semantics apply also in "fry me an egg" and every other possible way of rearranging the words fry and egg. — Hippietrail 01:58, 14 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think that they should be added/kept, but with a useful description - how is a bicycle wheel different from a tractor wheel. How can you tell by looking at one that it comes from roller skates or a skateboard? "A wheel designed for a xxx" doesn't really tell you anything - rather like "a surname". SemperBlotto 22:35, 11 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think that's one part of the point. Bicicyle wheels come in many shapes and sizes- think of a penny farthing's wheels. Think of plastic-spoked BMX wheels. Think of the racing wheels with a smooth disk instead of spokes. And then think of wheels used on older prams which may be the same ones as used on some small bicycles - at least to look at. Even the front wheel is substantially different from the back wheel in many cases. I'm sure tractor wheels have even greater variation. The things. The same goes for rollerskate wheels. Those used by speed skaters are very different from the ones on cheap children's skates. Inline skates vary even more when you think about the off-road rollerblades made by some companies. And then those used in Razor scooters and their many imitators are very similar to typical rollerblade wheels only larger - but are they called "scooter wheels" or "Razor wheels" or both or a bunch of other names not widely used? Now what if we consider the bearings used in the wheels. Roller blades and skateboards use the same bearings that are manufactured for generic purposes but they are packaged and marketed for skaters who might call them "skate bearings", "skateboard bearings", "rollerblade bearings", "inline skate bearings", "in-line skate bearings", etc. And even then there are variations. There are greased bearings and oiled bearings. There are metal bearings and expensive ones made of modern materieals. Do they each have one or several ways of naming them? How many do we include? — Hippietrail 23:21, 11 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    How many do we include? As many as our contributors enter and improve, as Wiktionary is not paper. I would guess that more than half of the terms you listed above should meet our criteria and each would get votes for keep if it came to it. Going out of your way to attack good-faith contributions seem to be more than a waste of time. Your continued attack seems to be having the effect of discouraging improvement of entries that could use it. By the way, what is a penny farthing? --Connel MacKenzie T C 17:02, 25 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    To answer things in reverse order, Encarta has an entry for penny-farthing here.
    On to the important things. I think it's a shame to label things as attacks. I want a free online dictionary that includes just the types of things traditional dictionaries like OED and websters and RAE include. You want a free online dictionary that includes many more types of things. There are others who feel as I do and others who feel as you do. I'm sure there's a way if we work together to accomplish both goals but the first steps are to a) stop fighting and b) stop looking at disagreements as fights.
    Wikipedia goes to some length to cover things such as speculation and weasel words. I'm sure many of the words would get votes for keep. I'm equally sure many would get votes for delete. I'm sure some would get votes for both. I'm not sure how many or which would win or lose. I also don't know which ones would be labelled as "watered down" if they were added.
    I've talked elsewhere about the problems with the naming of RFD and RFC, the labelling of using them as attacking, the possibility of changing to calmer terms such as "disputed" or "under debate". Maybe instead of a 2-way system of "doesn't belong here" vs "belongs here" we could have a 3-way system of "doesn't belong here" vs "belongs in any traditional dictionary" vs "belongs in wiktionary which includes much more than traditional dictionaries". Then by the use of some combination of categories, CSS, templates, JavaScript, etc we might be able to give users the best of both worlds. I'm not attacking - I want a better Wiktionary. This is not a one-sided issue with a plain and obvious answer that makes all current and future users happy. Let's just talk about it. — Hippietrail 21:29, 25 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    Alright, but it's important not to confuse discussing "Request for..." processes and the CFI. I think we should definitely keep an open mind there (for the latter). Some concern has been voiced lately regarding the need for Wiktionary to partially (as you described above) accept non-idiomatic (or whatever you call them) phrases and compounds, and to a lesser extent neo-/protologisms. —Vildricianus 23:15, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
    CFI and RFX are closely interrelated. During RFD discussions, whether the nominated term complies with CFI is often brought up. Also due to voting on RFD, terms which don't meet the CFI as it stands at the time are often kept. Anyway the two concepts need to develop together - indeed to become closer to one another. By the way, I've put a link on the Beer parlour to a mailing list topic where real lexicographers are discussing this same topic right now. — Hippietrail 23:25, 25 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Hmm, I wonder what it means. Delete. Widsith 07:47, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Delete--Richardb 15:08, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

OK, so the year definition is probably not worth keeeping, but the literary reference is probably worth keeping somehow. Thoughts? --EncycloPetey 23:14, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Now that you've read the above comments, perhaps you should restore it. --Connel MacKenzie T C 07:38, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. Widsith 08:09, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Comments? Davilla
keep. Andrew massyn 17:27, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I have added a brand new definition (as an adjective). Feel free to improve, and add more quotes. SemperBlotto 19:11, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep of course, in its current shape. —Vildricianus 17:04, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
Keep as per Rory096. Davilla 17:12, 26 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep ditto --Enginear 01:00, 27 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep--Richardb 09:31, 16 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This is covered by crawl sense 4. So how is it idiomatic? Widsith 09:29, 14 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

‘Did you come down Oxford Street this morning? It's absolutely crawling!’ Widsith 10:05, 14 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"It's absolutely crawling!" Huh?? Davilla 12:26, 14 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The crime scene was crawling with police and reporters. 
The horrible sight made my skin crawl.

To me, these two examples don't register as being the same sense. I can't even think of how to use "crawl with" except as crawling with. Would anyone else support moving the entry back? Davilla 12:41, 14 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that the examples represent different senses; I have separated them. But this sense should definitely not exist only at crawl with, even if it always takes with (which I'm not convinced of). People are more likely to look up crawl, and that is a specific sense of this word. Whether or not crawl with exists as well is something I'm actually fairly ambivalent about, though personally I don't think it's necessary. Widsith 16:50, 14 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
FWIW, I think the OED has this as a sense of "crawl" and notes that it is followed by with, rather than giving it as an idiom "crawl with". So the best solution is probably to make "crawl with" a cross-reference (or, horror of horrors, dare I say it, a redirect) to "crawl" and to move the content there as a transitive sense, noting that it is followed by "with". — Paul G 09:22, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Deleted. Already at "crawl", which is what print dictionaries do. I've replaced it with a redirect to "crawl" so that people searching on this term can find it and contributors don't reproduce "crawl with". — Paul G 07:23, 24 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Lewis Caroll - A weak delete from me. Andrew massyn 22:23, 20 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The word appears to be gaining a "meaning". I deleted the meaining and it has now been restored. I agree with Widsith. It is the sort of word that will be tampered with. Change to strong delete! Andrew massyn 07:24, 21 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. The whole point of that poem was that the words in it were nonsense! Widsith 22:46, 20 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Keep, this is exactly the kind of thing you would want to be able to look up in a comprehensive dictionary, it has a meaning, and an etymology, and appears in an extremely well-known work. Kappa 23:39, 20 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. The word has been discussed at length in so many books and translated into so many different languages, it deserves an entry here. Rod (A. Smith) 23:54, 20 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Looking at books.google.com, the blistering majority of references happen to be direct quotes of "Twas brillig, and the slithy roves"...which means this soundly fails Wiktionary's independence criteria. Of the two or three hundred remaining published books there, I assume they just "misspelled" slithy or toves.  :-) I'm not sure this needs to be put to the vorpal sword, though...the Wiktionary entry does qualify it as a nonce, rather explicitly. --Connel MacKenzie T C 08:42, 21 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed, and independence, of course, is only a sub-criterion of the three-cites criterion, and presumably this one sticks under the well-known work criterion; marking it as a nonce should be sufficient. —Muke Tever 22:39, 21 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Very well, then; I forgot that rule. Strong keep. --Connel MacKenzie T C 16:37, 25 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I vote to burn all copies of the poem. This is nothing more than Dr. Seuss for the literary types. A partial extermination would be unsatisfactory except as a good start. Barring that, weak keep strong abstention mild amentia. Davilla 10:18, 21 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Well OK. If we must keep it MUST WE KEEP THE MEANING AND ETYMOLOGY, both of which are utter twaddle. I have fixed once already and it has been restored. Andrew massyn 17:23, 21 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think wiktionary users should be aware that a definition and etymology are provided, whether or not the source should be regarded as canonical. Kappa 17:40, 21 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Can't wait to see how we define wabe and frabjous. Not to mention all the nadsat from A Clockwork Orange, and the language used in Finnegans Wake. It's pretty desperate when our authoritative source for a word's meaning and etymology is Humpty Dumpty! Seriously though, trying to define self-described ‘nonsense verse’ is a bit strange. Some of the words are given one meaning by HD, and another by Lewis Carroll, eg Humpty says that gyre means to go round and round in circles, but Carroll wrote in a letter that it meant to scratch like a dog. Similarly rath is defined by HD as a pig, by LC as a kind of turtle. In my opinion, the only time to include such words is when they have entered the general language. That is not the case here (although it is true of some of the other words he made up, like chortle or galumphing, which have been used plenty by other writers and have developed specific meanings). What citations can possibly be added for this? How can we define it with any confidence? Why are we ignoring the CFI suddenly? Widsith 08:11, 22 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Even if we can't define it with confidence, we can still report how sources like HD and LC have defined it. That's wiktionary doing the best it can to explain the meaning and etymology of a word people would be searching for. According to the CFI "A term should be included if it's likely that someone would run across it and want to know what it means." Kappa 10:29, 22 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. I really agree with Widsith here, this is not dictionary material at all. Suppose Wiktionary was around at Carroll's time, and he submitted it, it would have gone straight at WT:LOP ! —Vildricianus 14:27, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Weak keep Yes, in Carroll's day it would have been a protologism; but then, over the years it may eventually have become a neologism. SemperBlotto 14:34, 24 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Keep There is precedent in OED for including words from Jabberwocky. These words are by a well-known author and so are likely to be sought in Wiktionary; they are also of etymological interest.

Vildricianus, you might say the same of many words that Shakespeare invented, which have since become part of the language. By your criterion, burble should be expunged, as this was invented by Carroll. [Oops, I meant chortle, and Vildricianus has covered this word.] The other inventions in Jabberwocky might not have become more widely used, but they are of linguistic interest for the reasons given the previous paragraph. — Paul G 07:29, 24 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That's not what I meant. If brillig is used, it should be included of course. Words of linguistic interest are currently not covered by WT:CFI. I wouldn't mind if they were, but that's a new argument then. — Vildricianus 10:52, 24 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Is this idiomatic? 64.193.70.223 22:11, 23 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Considering it is someting said to the ether, and not the person you'd want to pick up the phone, I'd say yes. But even if it were not, this should not be nominated for deletion. See the Pawley list; being idiomatic is one of many reasons not to nominate something here. --Connel MacKenzie T C 22:17, 23 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. It is idiomatic, because of the meaning of "pick up" in the sense of a phone.
Agreed, keep. Davilla 05:08, 24 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The =Related terms= should definitely go, though. Widsith 17:03, 24 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
On what basis? — Hippietrail 17:07, 24 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, but ditch the synonym/related terms. bd2412 T 17:06, 24 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
On what basis? — Hippietrail 17:07, 24 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
What – ‘pick up the other phone’? ‘Pick up the campus phone’? You may as well add ‘pick up the yellow phone’, ‘pick up the slightly wet phone’ etc etc with every adjective in the language. Widsith 17:20, 24 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
(damn edit conflict!!!) The "synonym" is merely a variation in usage of the entry, and should be a redirect if it exists as an entry at all. The "related terms" are no more than the sum of the parts of the entry with an additional descriptor - might as well have entries for "pick up the blue phone", "pick up the white phone", "pick up the small phone", "pick up the wall-mounted phone", "pick up the exploding-badger-ringtone phone", etc. How many of the related terms listed in the article are attested as anything other than the idiom to which the article itself relates? bd2412 T 17:21, 24 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Which of this Pawley person's rules do they break? Unlike "pick up the slightly wet phone", the ones I included were all confirmed via Google Print and I can provide citations.
Do we have a "variation in usage" header which is preferable to the "synonyms" header?
Please show which is the "standard" and which is the "variation".
I thought we no longer use the "sum of parts" argument in favour of somebody named Pawley who I can't find much information about.
We already have articles and people fighting for more articles of the "sum of the parts of the entry with an additional descriptor" type. Are you now arguing against "Egyptian pyramid" and "fried egg"? If not, please use arguments that cannot be also used against those articles. — Hippietrail 17:42, 24 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Not at all. If I travel to Egypt and build a foot-high pyramid out of sand, it could be abstractly labeled an "Egyptian pyramid", but is not the thing brought to mind when I use the phrase "Egyptian pyramid". However, if I "pick up the bedroom phone", the label would appropriately apply to any phone that happens to be in a bedroom. There is no specific type of phone that leaps to mind when I utter that phrase, thus it is not idiomatic beyond the phrase "pick up the phone" and the word "bedroom". bd2412 T 18:08, 24 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
That new section seems to be someone unsuccessfully trying to prove something. This search indicates that this is a very common set phrase; the bogus entries added to the entry don't seem to meet our criteria for inclusion in the English Wiktionary. Amusingly enough, pick up the fucking phone seems like it might. --Connel MacKenzie T C 17:22, 24 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
So you will be glad to know that all of the additional forms were also found using books.google.com — Hippietrail 17:42, 24 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I see your point. I maintain that it is invalid, as the above links demonstrate. --Connel MacKenzie T C 17:55, 24 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Please search properly, English is an inflected language: [5], [6], [7], [8]
And what about these - are they unidiomatic or unattested? Which Pawley rule do they offend? pick the phone back up: [9], pick up that phone: [10], pick her phone up: [11], pick up his phone: [12], pick up a phone: [13]Hippietrail 18:20, 24 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Well I think by now I've successfully illustrated that it's not a set phrase at all since all elements of this entry can be changed: pick up ... -> pick ... up; the -> his; phone -> telephone. Indeed only the verb to pick up when used with an object which means telephone has special semantics, (which I would argue is not even a different meaning). It would make much more sense for linguistic formulae of this type to go on the page of the verb in the Usage notes, or less fittingly as an addittional sense labelled something like (of a telephone). — Hippietrail 00:42, 25 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, I'll modify my vote to delete all related terms except pick up the fucking phone (although I note that "pick up the goddamn phone" gets the same turnout. bd2412 T 17:34, 24 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think fing is idomatic just because it's used a lot. red phone might be but it's the same concept anyways. I just went ahead and deleted them all, save the synonyms. If you think any of them should have stayed, create the page. Davilla 18:02, 24 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep (it's idiomatic English in that "pick up the phone" doesn't mean to pick up the entire telephone but just the receiver), but the "related terms" is no good--almost all of them are extremely specific and often far-fetched phrases -- delete related terms. Badagnani 17:27, 24 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • At first I thought delete, but I'm going to say keep as this is idiomatic when it means "lift the receiver in preparation to make a phone call", as in "You can't even pick up the phone and call your old mother from time to time?" The idiomaticity is lost if any of the components are changed: "lift up the phone"; "raise the phone"; "pick up a phone"; "pick up the dog and bone" — Paul G 12:38, 25 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

We really need to hammer out a policy on how we deal with so-called idioms. Are we really going to include every term that can't be translated literally into another language? ‘He uses a walking-stick’ doesn't sound very idiomatic, but in French they would say ‘il s'aide d'une canne pour marcher’ which isn't the same thing at all. That doesn't mean we give the whole phrase a namespace of its own. I think these things are better dealt with, as Hippietrail suggests, within the relevant =Verb= or =Noun= page. In this specific case, for example, ‘phone’ is simply being used, by synecdoche, for ‘receiver’. Widsith 12:54, 25 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Not necessarily. Suppose I have a cell phone with no receiver - if it starts ringing and someone says "pick up the phone", they mean "answer the phone", irrespective of whether there is any part to physically pick up. bd2412 T 23:03, 25 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Ha, good point. So this should just be another sense of pick up (=‘answer’). Widsith 07:02, 26 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
So far as I know, "pick up" does not mean "answer" except in the context of a telephone. bd2412 T 13:21, 29 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Another word invented by an author for a book (Harry Potter). Jonathan Webley 14:44, 25 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You mean a word used in a well-known work ? —Muke Tever 00:29, 26 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, that needs to be clarified some, doesn't it? If it's a nonce word, there should at least be quotations in other works that analyze or discuss the original. A nonce word remains meaningless if nobody notices it.
So then, how does this one square up? Possible restore depending. Davilla 06:16, 27 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
This is a debatable one... we have entries for the nonce words in Lewis Carroll's Jabberwocky as this is a well-known work and the words are of linguistic interest. Some have become standard words (such as chortle, from "chortled" in the poem) and some print dictionaries give some of the words too.
However, that is not to say we should be including nonce words from every work of literature. Print dictionaries exclude most of the nonce words in James Joyce's works, for example (maybe because many of them have unclear meanings) and very many authors make up words purely for a single usage in a single book. I would suggest the guideline could be to include a nonce word if:
  • it appears in a well-known work, or appears in a work by a well-known author; and
  • it has been, or is likely to be, adopted in general use or is of linguistic interest.
By these criteria, words from the Harry Potter books might well be included, because they are well-known works by a well-known author and are of linguistic interest (largely being derived from Latin). However, I would think that they are unlikely to be adopted in general use, apart from a few like muggle, especially those that are used in casting spells.
What do others think? — Paul G 08:37, 27 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The likelihood of adoption is subjective, but it's not off track. What objective criteria could be used? Certainly there must have been later attempts to define the word, or it wouldn't be possible to adopt. Above I noted analysis of the work, but this would be of the word itself. If that's times three, would one attempted definition suffice? What else would be required? Davilla 06:12, 3 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. I really think we are taking nonce words too seriously. There is a difference between a creative writer coining a new word for descriptive purposes, and a writer inventing something for a fictional universe. The second of Paul's criteria only should apply, IMO. I say again, the contents of Finnegans Wake, A Clockwork Orange, Riddley Walker etc etc could all be added on the basis that they are ‘well-known works’. The authors of these books would be laughing at us. Widsith 07:51, 31 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I really think we are taking nonce words too seriously. There is a difference between a creative writer coining a new word for descriptive purposes, and a writer inventing something for a fictional universe. — Indeed, and neither of these is really a nonce word, and all three belong in the dictionary if they meet CFI. —Muke Tever 00:49, 2 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep, I think wiktionary should put its ego aside and help its users to read difficult works regardless of what their authors would think. Kappa 11:11, 31 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If no independent citations provided within two weeks it will be deleted. Andrew massyn 13:29, 27 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Independence is irrelevant when used in a well-known work.Muke Tever 22:51, 28 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed. Should be kept. bd2412 T 23:14, 28 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. Widsith 21:06, 29 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The well known work is not the issue. What is at issue is the following.
  1. Spelling. As can be seen from above, there is no consensus on spelling. Unless there is a relevant citation from the writer or producers, this remains a moot point.
  2. Meaning. You will recall that in the exchange between Lisa and Principal Skinner, cromulent (in either spelling) was never defined. Where do we then get a meaning? My own view is that both embiggen and crommulent ( note other spelling) is a particularly sharp dig at nonces. My understanding is that we do not accept nonces. Hence delete. Andrew massyn 21:17, 29 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Where do we get the meaning? From the same place we get all meanings of words: from how they're used. (We can't always crib from earlier dictionaries.) In both places in the episode it is used, it clearly means 'authentic'.
    • And there is nothing against nonces in our policies.
    • As for the spelling, 'cromulent' is 345 times more common than 'crommulent' according to google (which is, however, polluted by mirrors of our page crommulent; the number may be higher). The same route presumably would be taken as for another word of recent coinage, frienemy/frenemy: i.e. let the best-attested have an entry and refer the rarer variants as alternate spellings, which is is, perhaps, the most NPOV route to take for a language such as English without standardized spellings (well, second to the less desirable route of duplicating all information across both articles, which we do with words that spellings that align with national customs, e.g. armor/armour). —67.166.55.206 23:12, 30 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This is rather significant since it would require an entry for the phrase "main page". Hopefully not idiomatic, and what to do if it is? Davilla 16:39, 27 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The solution is simple; moved Main page to Wiktionary:Main page. That's what they did on de:; de:Hauptseite is an entry, de:Wiktionary:Hauptseite is the main page. Jon Harald Søby 17:46, 27 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I actually did that a long time ago when similarish reasons were being discussed. Ec thought it was the worst kind of vandalism and moved it back. It has stayed back ever since. — Hippietrail 17:49, 27 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Me too - I'm with JHS in favour of moving our Main Page to Wiktionary:Main Page (or deleting them all ;)). --Newnoise (Shout louder) 10:01, 29 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not pushing it, but I would support doing that regardless of the outcome for this entry. Davilla 18:46, 27 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I won't use the phrase "sum of its parts", in order not to upset people, but main means most important, so main page, if it needed an entry, means nothing more than most important page, right? —Vildricianus 18:22, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
Considering that front door passes the Pawley tests (as they were originally stated by Pawley) I would think the front page of a newspaper or home page of a website would as well. "main page" as analogous would also be a good candidate.
The same is reflected in my intuitive notion of what constitutes a set phrase. The others click for certain, and "main page", probably still mentally summed for most people, might be borderline as a single unit.
However, the proposed rule derived from the Pawley test isn't as strong. To quote myself (with apologies), the fried egg test applies to "terms that imply certain social knowledge that could not be derived from any of the constituents, nor from their combination," and "main page" fails as essentially a sum of parts. On the other hand, Connel's substitution test might let it pass, since "principal page" just doesn't roll off the tongue. Davilla 18:46, 27 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

These aren't related, but anyway, they don't seem so good. I don't like them, and if I owned a dictionary I'd chuck them out. But besides that, not much is turning up on the whole attestation front --Newnoise (Shout louder) 15:49, 5 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Delete spockmate; I don't really have an opinion on the other one. Widsith 08:57, 9 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Spockmate deleted, being bold. --Dangherous 10:00, 19 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Delete, no google print, too uncertain of its legitimacy. Anyone has quotes? — Vildricianus 21:49, 23 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I assume this vote refers to uckfay ouyay, as spockmate is already gone? bd2412 T 21:54, 23 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, how about this website (one of many) that sells "uckfay ouyay" t-shirts. I put to you that any phrase that is so widely used that it appears on t-shirts sold by multiple vendors should be in the dictionary so that the casual passerby who sees the shirt can learn the meaning of the words on it. See also [19], [20]. Since some shirts (and numerous other sites) have "uckfay" in combination with other words, perhaps the article should just be moved to uckfay, tho. Apparently the word is occasionally used alone: [http://www.greatestjournal.com/users/asiul/2779.html], [21]. Cheers! bd2412 T 23:25, 23 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Delete uckfay ouyay. This is just an example of Pig Latin rather than one that deserves special treatment over others. Its use on a T-shirt doesn't count as a citation. If someone wants to include well-known examples of Pig Latin in Wiktionary, this can be done in an appendix.
As for the language, Pig Latin is an English cant, so the language should still be "English" and the label "Pig Latin" (compare butcher's, which is Cockney rhyming slang, another English cant). — Paul G 07:20, 24 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Please note, the last two examples ([http://www.greatestjournal.com/users/asiul/2779.html], [22]) are not t-shirts, but apparently persons using "uckfay" as a bowdlerized form of "fuck", e.g. a separate and independant word. bd2412 T 04:33, 25 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, this is not the most artful bunch, but it shows people in essentially normal conversation using "uckfay" as a substitute for "fuck". [23]; [24]; [http://www.greatestjournal.com/userinfo.bml?user=ap0calypse]; [25]; [26]; [27]. bd2412 T 13:36, 26 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Based on the above, I've moved uckfay ouyay to the more defensible uckfay, and adjusted the entry accordingly. Cheers! bd2412 T 16:58, 1 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm nomming this one as well, as the SOED is above. I read WT:CFI again, but can't really find any arguments to keep this. —Vildricianus 15:32, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Delete. A dictionary is not a list of companies, products, books, or other dictionaries. — Hippietrail 22:12, 24 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, as per previous four discussions on names of dictionaries. --Connel MacKenzie T C 16:03, 25 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Just to clarify your way of thinking, which of the following dictionaries would you be in favour of listing here:
The devil's dictionary, Cassell's Latin dictionary : Latin-English, English-Latin, The new college Latin & English dictionary, The dictionary of cultural literacy, An intermediate Greek-English lexicon, Roget's international thesaurus, The American Heritage dictionary of the English language, The superior person's book of words, Merriam-Webster's collegiate dictionary, Random House Japanese-English English-Japanese dictionary, The Klingon dictionary. English-Klingon, Klingon-English, A lexicon abridged from Liddell and Scott's Greek-English lexicon, The compact Oxford English dictionary, The American Heritage dictionary of the English language, Cassell's French and English dictionary, A Greek-English lexicon, Webster's New World dictionary of the American language, Webster's new collegiate dictionary, An elementary Latin dictionary, The concise Oxford dictionary of current English, The Bantam new college German & English dictionary, Collins Latin gem dictionary. Latin-English: English-Latin, The American Heritage dictionary, Concise Oxford English dictionary, Larousses French English English French Dictionary, English-Russian, Russian-English dictionary, Merriam-Webster's Spanish-English dictionary, Modern English-Yiddish, Yiddish-English dictionary, Webster's New World dictionary of American English, The American heritage college dictionary, Webster's ninth new collegiate dictionary, Cassell's Spanish and English dictionary, Cassell's Latin dictionary : Latin-English, English-Latin, The Bantam new college Spanish & English dictionary Diccionary, The Advanced learner's dictionary of current English, Collins-Robert French-English, English-French dictionary, Webster's new twentieth century dictionary of the English language, Concise Oxford English dictionary
This list is just the first part cut and pasted from a book-collector's site's page of the most commonly owned books under the Library of Congress subject "English language > Dictionaries". Any repetitions and variations are due to that site. Of variations and books with subtitles as well as titles, which would we include as alternative spellings or synonyms? — Hippietrail 20:11, 25 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Without even taking a moment to review your list, I'd say all should be entries here...Wiki is not paper is incredibly relevant. Thank you for the list, though. --Connel MacKenzie T C 04:03, 27 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Delete as per previous discussions on names of dictionaries. :-/ Davilla 18:52, 25 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
That's funny -- in Shorter Oxford English Dictionary up above, Connel claims that the result of previous discussions (on that one, at least) has been "keep". Who's right? (And where are those other discussions?) –Scs 22:19, 30 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The results were mixed, and the pages have been kept. What I meant was delete as per same comments given above. Davilla 15:22, 4 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The recent spate of Hippietrailism is not the only discussion regarding these. The more-than-slightly underhanded technique he is employing here is quite transparent. --Connel MacKenzie T C 04:03, 27 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Same as below, then why didn't anyone update the CFI? Unlike other policy pages, that one is really not meant to fossilize into a monument of the past. It should thoroughly reflect what current practice is. I may be saying this twice today, but then, I'm not being bold now and do it myself, for the obvious reasons of this and Dogmatix's RFD. —Vildricianus 12:35, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
Because there's no way to modify CFI except to say that the full titles of the OED and SOED are specific exceptions to the rule. Davilla 15:22, 4 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
redirect to OED, and link to Wikipedia there. This one is likely to get linked to oiften enough here that it's worth having a redirect to keep it from being reecreated. --EncycloPetey 20:44, 25 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I would be interested in turning that into an official policy for all expanded terms that do not meet CFI. Davilla 14:25, 28 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
OF COURSE KEEP. My God, have we gone insane? It's the OED for cryin' out loud. And people aren't expected to know what that is!? And the full name can't be cited out of context!? I'll wager 10 to 1 it can. Davilla 16:13, 10 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
On a side-note: first you vote delete, then strong keep. What's it then? — Vildricianus 11:05, 24 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Why? If we keep this, we keep all. We really can't start making notability criteria here. It's all or nothing at all. — Vildricianus 21:40, 23 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Not true, Vildricianus... this is the slippery-slope argument. See attestation versus the slippery slopePaul G 07:44, 24 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think so. This is about how notable a dictionary is. How is Oxford English Dictionary used attributively? — Vildricianus 11:05, 24 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Side question. Without opening the question of whether we want an entry for every dictionary ever (let alone every book title ever), how do people feel about... [rest of discussion moved to Wiktionary:Beer_parlour#other authoritative dictionariesScs 19:03, 3 June 2006 (UTC)][reply]

Deleted

Definition given: "(computing) the automatic encryption of all files in a particular folder or drive, rather than on an individual basis." My understanding of the phrase is the exact opposite, i.e. encryption performed only on individual items when they are needed. If I am right, the phrase is a sum of its parts: "on the fly" + "encryption". Rodasmith 20:14, 8 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I had a look around and a few places seem to mention firstly, automatic, and secondly, disk encryption, (although they are often logical disks, made from a single file). I'll leave it a few more days so that people more qualified than myself can give an opinion.

--Dmol 20:45, 8 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I doubt I'm more qualified, but I agree with Rs, it is the sum of its parts. --Enginear 22:21, 8 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The correct definition needs to be determined before we can know if this is idiomatic. Davilla 21:38, 9 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The wording of the definition doesn't mean that files aren't encrypted individually as needed. What it means is that the files to be encrypted do not have to be individually designated. This is a software solution for which a drive or folder is encrypted transparently. That is, all content of the drive or folder is encrypted physically, but is freely accessible virtually, provided the password key has been provided. Unless someone could contrast what "on-the-fly" would mean to them, or contrast seemingly synonymous terms as varying types of encryption, this would seem to be non-idiomatic. Is it a technical term though? I would be hesitant to delete it. Davilla 10:41, 14 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It is a technical term, but only in the same way as (looking at my program menu) program compatability wizard and scanner and camera wizard are technical terms. Personally, I would not expect to look either of them up as a phrase. On the fly is idiomatic (and of course we have an entry for it, to which we might add without disruption to the other activity which is pretty close to transparently when it relates to computing, rather than say newspaper printing, which is, I think, an earlier use of the phrase).
In the OTFE definition, in case we keep it, I have changed links from on the fly to on the fly since we already have on the fly defined in that idiomatic sense. I have not yet improved the def of on the fly as I suggested above, since we do not yet show the appropriate sense of disruption, do not have transparently at all, and do not have transparent in the sense of invisible. I haven't time to do them now, and may not be online very much for the next two weeks, but they are on my list, and I will do them later, if no one gets there first. (Also, I want to check earlier uses of on the fly, which I think used to refer to things done during newspaper printing without stopping the presses. Does anyone have any info? And if so, was it the first use? Maybe also associated with fly tipping, so I'm not sure which sense of fly it would come from.) --Enginear 01:58, 15 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Encryption (used with the normal computer meaning) is only one of several actions that can be done on the fly when disks are read/written. Others include basic error checking (which has always been standard), fragmenting if necessary (which is standard these days but was not 20 years ago), and error correction and compression (which can both be set as options on many modern systems). The whole phrase is not therefore idiomatic. I would not have added it, and am not sure it's helpful. But it's not directly harmful, and personally I would not bother to delete it. (This is not supposed to be a comment on whether it satisfies our CfI, in which I am not yet an expert.) --Enginear 15:38, 14 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
to rfd. We need to agree on a definition. Please post further comments here. If agreement cannot be reached n two weeks, the article will be deleted until someone can define it.Andrew massyn 14:12, 10 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
In particular, does anyone know if this term could apply equally to hardware encryption? If so it's probably not worth attesting. Or if "on the fly" applies to software in every case. In that case as well it's probably not worth attesting. Davilla 15:57, 10 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Deleted. Andrew massyn 09:27, 25 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

pick up the phone revisited. One can do pretty much everything with a phone, right? Or is this really idiomatic? —Vildricianus 20:35, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Delete. --Connel MacKenzie T C 22:23, 21 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Delete, but I think this is very different from pick up the phone; that expression can be used in a figurative sense when there is nothing to actually "pick up" (e.g. a receiverless phone); this one means nothing different that "slam the foo down". bd2412 T 04:01, 22 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I was going to delete this one on sight, but I have already had to undelete two others recently so we'll go through the motions. SemperBlotto 07:16, 22 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. You don't do this with the whole phone, just the receiver. Fark 11:37, 22 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Pragmatically, receiver = phone. It's a metonym or something. We couldn't make inclusions for simple metaphors only. Delete... or keep as a phrasebook entry? Davilla 01:02, 23 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
What if it's a cell-phone, with no receiver? You could still slam it down just as you could slam down a stapler or a book. bd2412 T 13:28, 22 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Um, can you? Davilla 13:47, 22 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Wouldn't be good for the phone, but sure you can. I suppose the presumption is that in slamming down a phone, it is being hung up (e.g. the call disconnected), but with pick up the phone, that understanding is explicit. bd2412 T 19:04, 22 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah. This phrase is idiomatic (sort of) in that it doesn't refer to, for example, slamming a cell phone down on the table, but rather rather slamming the receiver of a phone while it's being hung up. Fark 20:30, 22 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
No, the point is that slamming down a cell phone does not mean the same thing as a regular phone because, in contrast to "pick up", "slam down" is not idiomatic. It doesn't mean hang up. If slamming down the phone meant hanging it up, then you could slam down a cell phone without breaking it. As it stands, you'd better hope your cell phone has a sturdy design.
And how would we decide this if we didn't have cell phones? Thank God for that! We'd be debating for weeks. Davilla 00:58, 23 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think anyone claimed that slam down meant hang up. Even the definition doesn't say it means hang up. You can slam down a cell phone (which has no receiver) or you can slam down the receiver of a regular phone. Fark 02:00, 23 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. Not idiomatic. Proper definitions of slam and phone will cover it. —Stephen 18:04, 22 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Deleted per agreement here. —Vildricianus 14:19, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

I think I misunderstood Fark's reasoning. Question: does the fact that the type of phone slammed down is implicit make this idiomatic? If someone told you that a conversation ended when they heard the phone slammed down, not only do you know it was the receiver that was slammed down, rather than the phone in its entirety, but also that it was the type of phone that had a receiver in the first place. Since even the other person could make this assumption without seeing the person who hung up on them, I would consider this a pragmatic issue. I maintain my position above. Davilla 16:46, 25 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This one has been settled now, but I would include slam down with a definition something like "to put down violently", which can apply to any object. Hence "slam down the phone" is not idiomatic, because it means to slam down the receiver of the phone, and does not simply mean to hang up because it can't be said of a cellphone, which does not have a receiver. — Paul G 08:30, 27 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Failed rfv. --Connel MacKenzie T C 04:36, 20 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I didn’t look at the google hits, but I think any occurrence of this word in English is the result of a bad translation from Spanish or Portuguese fiscalizar. In Portuguese, it means to inspect. I’ve encountered it many thousands of times in Spanish documents, where it means to inspect, to control, to supervise, to investigate, to pry into, and sometimes to censure or to criticize. Unfortunately, it’s quite common for inexperienced or incompetent translators to translate fiscalizar as fiscalize. Perhaps we should treat this the same way we do common misspellings. —Stephen 16:22, 20 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I added the Spanish and Portuguese page for good measure. —Stephen 16:31, 20 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Deleted as failed RFV. — Vildricianus 20:04, 1 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Moved from rfv. If no independent cites added within two weeks it will be deleted. Andrew massyn 13:07, 27 May 2006 (UTC).[reply]

Didn't we decide to not include Tolkein's languages? this one is in Sindarin. --Newnoise (Shout louder) 12:19, 30 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • In any event, this is not a word, but a specific thing, and one not used by reference to denote another thing - therefore encyclopedic (and indeed already in Wikipedia). Delete. bd2412 T 18:17, 30 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Our criteria says that somce constructed languages are allowed, but this isn't one of them. It does not seem to have an ISO-639 code. --Connel MacKenzie T C 04:38, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Actually Sindarin has an ISO 639 code—WT:CFI#Constructed languages already notes this, and also that nevertheless it has not yet been greenlighted by the community. (The code is sjn, BTW.) —Muke Tever 00:40, 2 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Deleted — Vildricianus 20:55, 1 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]