Talk:product

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
Jump to navigation Jump to search

RFD[edit]

The following discussion has been moved from Wiktionary:Requests for deletion.

This discussion is no longer live and is left here as an archive. Please do not modify this conversation, but feel free to discuss its conclusions.

Rfd-redundant: A hair product, a hair care product – a preparation used to style hair and offered for sale. Dude, you use more product on your hair than any other guy I know!

This seems redundant to the uncountable use of the main sense: "A commodity offered for sale" or, possibly, a rewording of that sense to be substitutable in uncountable use or to focus on the essential definiens of the item's/stuff's having been produced rather than the inessential that it be offered for sale. DCDuring TALK 15:54, 13 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Delete, yes, either that or a case of implied meaning, where from prior contact with each other the speaker and the listener know what the 'product' is even if someone who was unfamiliar with the speaker or the listener would not. Mglovesfun (talk) 16:04, 13 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
keep when used without a previous cue in the sentence it chiefly means gel/mouse/hair spray/etc, this is a very common idiomatic usage, in other cases the subject of the sentence would imply what product (industrial chemical, baseboards, potting plants, paint, wd40, bullet casings, tutus, drag queen products, etc), but without the cue it is implied that the listener/reader knows it is hair product and this is even with context, in other cases a cue or context and typically both is necessitated.71.142.74.66 20:56, 13 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Can toy provide an example? The current one (given above) clearly doesn't work, as the listener will just work it out from the context. No different to 'I used a lot of product to clean my sink', where it becomes apparent that the product is one for cleaning sinks. Mglovesfun (talk) 20:59, 13 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe send to RFV for citations that support the sub-sense and are improbable or awkward for somebody who knows only about the more general sense. We have the double-hash line starter to indicate sub-senses if needed. Equinox ◑ 23:57, 13 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Move to RfV ASAP. DCDuring TALK 01:02, 14 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Certainly the sense needs to be attested before we can even consider keeping it, so that's fine with me. Could still be rfd-redundant if cited, though. Mglovesfun (talk) 12:16, 14 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. This is a separate sense to the others and totally non-intuitive to non-native speakers, as well as even native speakers who are not familiar with hairdressing vocabulary (e.g. my dad). ---> Tooironic 22:24, 14 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • We can cite it while it stays here, instead of a purely formal move to RfV. Does anyone object? DCDuring TALK 23:28, 14 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    The cites that I find raise the question whether this is just an example of a context-sensitive ellipsis. If one has mentioned "hair-care product" previously or the work (article, book) is about hair care and one has mentioned terms like "gel product", it seems beyond the scope of a dictionary to explain the ellipsis. It would seem to be a waste of time to collect citations that fail to show relatively context-free use. The following illustrates the context-sensitive usage:
    How about "Finally, load the hair with product, such as mousse, cutting lotion, or texturizer, and blow dry very straight to see the lines cut." Fugyoo 00:18, 15 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Incidentally "I used a lot of product to clean my sink" sounds wrong, I would say "a lot of the product", but this might be a UK/US thing. Fugyoo 00:20, 15 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The example I gave is a real one of a class that might serve for attestation. Made-up examples illustrate the understanding of one person, to wit, you. Google Books, News, and possibly Usenet are possible sources for attestation. Google product hair -"hair product" (Books • Groups • Scholar) might yield some instances for consideration.
Probably, "product" would sound OK in cases where it is an ellipsis of a common expression like "hair-care product". It could be that folks in the hair-care industry always use "product" to mean what the rest of us might call "hair-care product". I'm not sure how we attest that, but it seems plausible enough. DCDuring TALK 04:01, 15 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Re: "When women tell me that a product is too heavy on their hair" I wouldn't accept this as a citation for this sense, as the word 'hair' is used. Goes back to my 'product' and 'sink' example. Mglovesfun (talk) 10:17, 15 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
This sense is uncountable so your example should be "When women tell me that product is too heavy..." (clearer without "that": "when women tell me product is too heavy..." Fugyoo 20:54, 15 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

moved to RFV -- Liliana • 12:34, 28 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

RFV[edit]

The following discussion has been moved from Wiktionary:Requests for verification.

This discussion is no longer live and is left here as an archive. Please do not modify this conversation, but feel free to discuss its conclusions.

Rfv-sense: (uncountable) A hair product, a hair care product – a preparation used to style hair and offered for sale.

This was on RfD, and while most of the people voted keep, they also raised doubts on the existence and validity of this sense. -- Liliana • 12:35, 28 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I was browsing google books for this kind of usage, and I found it for other cosmetic products including makeup, nail varnish and even the gunk they inject during plastic surgery. Didn't seem to occur in other contexts - seemed to always be from the supplier's or seller's POV. Fugyoo 00:26, 4 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It is very plausible that product would have this meaning, and yet, as has been noted, it does always seem to be context-dependent. Well, RFV-failed for now, until it can be re-added with better cites. - -sche (discuss) 03:41, 2 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]


Retrieved from "https://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:product&oldid=31614657"