Talk:no flies on

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RFM discussion: January 2014–February 2015[edit]

The following discussion has been moved from Wiktionary:Requests for moves, mergers and splits (permalink).

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.


to no flies on someone.

See WT:TR#no flies on. DCDuring TALK 13:12, 24 January 2014 (UTC)Reply

  • Oppose. If it's established practice here that we can refer to nonconstituents as "phrases" (as suggested at the discussion linked to above), then I prefer to keep this entry where it is and call it a "phrase" rather than a noun. If I read "there are certainly no flies on him" and didn't know what it meant, no flies on rather than no flies on someone would be what I looked up. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 13:33, 24 January 2014 (UTC)Reply
You could certainly make the case that this expression is not "really" a noun as it is virtually exclusively used as part of a predicate, ie, not as a subject of a clause or object of a preposition. DCDuring TALK 18:51, 24 January 2014 (UTC)Reply
And the fact that it modifies another noun directly. No noun could syntactically fit in "There are ___ that man." —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 19:28, 24 January 2014 (UTC)Reply
I can think of one noun that would fit: no-fly zone. (sorry, I'll go now). By the way, Wiktionary needs an entry for the noun nonconstituent (non-constituent). Pengo (talk) 21:42, 25 January 2014 (UTC)Reply
Not moved. - -sche (discuss) 06:51, 5 February 2015 (UTC)Reply