Talk:999

Deletion debate

The following information passed a request 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.

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999

I don't think this is a word in English. If anything, it's a proper noun, the name of a specific phone service. The tranlingual should go if the English does. By way of contrast, 360 is a word because it's attestable as a noun, with a plural. Mglovesfun (talk) 23:12, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

Keep. "Phone 999" is synonymous with "Phone the emergency services". Conrad.Irwin 23:14, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

Keep, we have 000 112 911 without challenge.--Dmol 23:57, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

Well, I was gonna challenge those too. Mglovesfun (talk) 11:31, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Delete as defined ("a phone number").​—msh210℠ 16:20, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

I can't see any reason to keep this in a dictionary. Equinox ◑ 16:27, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

911 has other meanings so I wouldn't rfd that, but 000 and 112 seem just as deletable. Otherwise why not (deprecated template usage) 0800. Mglovesfun (talk) 20:33, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

The OED, if I recall correctly, has an entry for 0800 number. Equinox ◑ 15:23, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

Keep. Used in a Motörhead song ("Call 999, emergency!"), and I wouldn't know just from the song lyric that it was the UK equivalent of 911. bd2412 T 15:23, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

Wouldn't you? I don't know the surrounding lyrics, but "Call 999, emergency!" is pretty clear to me. (Of course, I wouldn't know that it's the UK equivalent, but I'd know that it's the equivalent somewhere, or at least in the song's universe.)​—msh210℠ 15:19, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

I'm also not familiar with the song, but if I heard rather than read that sentence I would tend to parse it as "Call 999-EMERGENCY". :-) -- Visviva 15:34, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

As a US English speaker, I have no frame of reference for sentences like "Have you called 999, Mr Jarvis?" [1] Is it someone's badge number? A code name? Possibilities abound. Yet it is apparent that not only do the characters in that novel immediately understand the meaning, but also the author expects -- probably correctly, assuming a British audience -- that the reader will immediately understand it as well. That would seem to make it dictionary-worthy. Keep, I think. -- Visviva 15:34, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

Just found 1471 too. Mglovesfun (talk) 22:32, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

• kept--Rising Sun talk? contributions 23:52, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

Language

This isn't really "English" - it's translingual. Nothing's more translingual than an Arabic numeral as script matters don't come into it. Mglovesfun (talk) 10:26, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Also, it's a fact about the real world. The emergency number happens to be 999, as the name of the prime minister happens to be David Cameron, but the term 999 has no specific meaning of this kind any more than PM-hood follows on from the name Cameron. Boo. Equinox ◑ 12:25, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

It should certainly have a language section for each language in which it's used out of context to refer to the emergency services; at the moment such use has been demonstrated only for (certain dialects of) English. -- Visviva 16:21, 4 June 2010 (UTC)