Talk:vegetable garden

RFD 2014

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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vegetable garden

Ummm... sum of parts? Keφr 05:52, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

• Either delete or provide an actual definition. SemperBlotto (talk) 08:12, 19 December 2013 (UTC)
• Delete. --WikiTiki89 09:05, 19 December 2013 (UTC)
• Keep. To me, at least, it's a set term for a specific thing. Ƿidsiþ 09:46, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

  Is it a "set term"? I'd like to know what your definition of "set term" is then. The word "vegetable" can be replaced with pretty much anything else that can be grown in a garden. --WikiTiki89 10:54, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

  I suppose I mean that I think of it as a single lexical unit which describes a single specific concept, i.e. I consider this the idiomatic way to express the idea in English. Other languages convey the idea very differently, as the Translations section shows; you can't just translate it by translating "vegetable" + "garden". Ƿidsiþ 15:52, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

  I think we are missing a sense at [[garden]] that implies small size and personal use. All of the translations at [[vegetable garden]] that don't translate to "vegetable + garden" really should be listed as translations of that sense of "garden" (note that I am not speaking generally, but specifically about each of the translations moestuin, potager, orto, and огоро́д (ogoród), all of which I have verified to simply mean "garden"). --WikiTiki89 16:15, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

  Never would you translate French (deprecated template usage) potager as ‘garden’. It means a vegetable garden, or a kitchen garden (literally, somewhere you grow things that go in soup). Ƿidsiþ 16:26, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

  I agree that English "garden" has a broader range of definitions than French "potager", but the definition of "potager" is 100% covered by "garden". In English, you'd be more likely to say "I put some cabbage from the garden into the soup." than "I put some cabbage from the vegetable garden into the soup." --WikiTiki89 16:35, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

  I'm afraid I disagree that it's 100 percent covered by "garden". If someone in French says they're starting a little potager, you cannot say that they're starting a little garden, that's not what they mean at all. Also, bear in mind that a vegetable garden is not necessarily (or even usually) a whole garden – it's a part of a garden where veg is grown. I also note that the OED and Collins, among other dictionaries, have definitions for it. Ƿidsiþ 16:47, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

  What I mean is that "garden" entirely ecompasses "potager", while "potager" does not entirely encompass "garden". If you are starting a potager, you can certainly say that you are starting a "little garden", you'd just be being less specific. The fact that a vegetable garden can be part of a garden means nothing, for example, a "redwood forest" can be part of a larger "forest", but that doesn't make "redwood forest" idiomatic. --WikiTiki89 16:53, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

  No I understand your point (I think), I just don't agree. For me, a vegetable garden is idiomatic in a way that "redwood forest" is not; I think of the first as being one lexical unit and the second as two. Perhaps partly this is because I know it translates to one-word terms in certain languages, perhaps it's just because of the way it's used in sentences. It's hard to quantify, but for me it's absolutely dictionary-worthy (and other dictionaries clearly agree). Ƿidsiþ 17:05, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

  Could you give an example of how you would use it in a sentence in way that demonstrates your point? --WikiTiki89 17:10, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

• The Dutch translation seems non-trivial to me. This, that and the other (talk) 10:31, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

Green grass is a set term, so what? This a dictionary. Mglovesfun (talk) 16:03, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

I can't imagine anyone looking this up, unless they don't know what vegetable and garden mean. And if they don't they should see vegetable and garden. Mglovesfun (talk) 16:06, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

I now think that we should keep this. Though I am struggling to explain why. SemperBlotto (talk) 17:27, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

• Keep it. Those translations are useful, and would be left dangling in mid-air if this entry was deleted; other languages don't regard compound words as a problem. Donnanz (talk) 22:41, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

• Delete; it's a garden where you grow vegetables. I don't know how to deal with the translation issue, but I don't think translators are going to look up vegetable and garden and then randomly look up vegetable garden (and then maybe enclosed vegetable garden or patio vegetable garden or family vegetable garden).--Prosfilaes (talk) 23:27, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

  Well they are if they're trying to translate ‘vegetable garden’. Ƿidsiþ 07:21, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

  I doubt they can afford to work as a translator if they charge by the word and get a lot of two word translation jobs. Stuff like "It was from Thomas Main that Jefferson bought the thorn plants that enclosed his two orchards and the vegetable garden." is more likely, and I don't see anything that would tell them that they need to look up "vegetable garden" and not "thorn plants".--Prosfilaes (talk) 11:36, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

Keep per Widsith. --Anatoli ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 07:27, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

• Keep at least as a translation target. My tentative personal inclusion criterion: The term has to be useful for translation into at least three languages and the three translated terms (i) must be single-word ones and (ii) they must not be closed compounds. The three single-word non-compound translations: French: potager, Russian огоро́д, Italian ortale. --Dan Polansky (talk) 08:04, 21 December 2013 (UTC)
• Delete per nom.​—msh210℠ (talk) 07:29, 26 December 2013 (UTC)
• Delete except if needed as translation target. Not sure what the rules are on that. DAVilla 13:03, 2 January 2014 (UTC)
• Strong keep, at least as a translation target. Many languages, including mine, have many terms for different kinds of vegetable gardens. We need to be able to collect and compare such terms on a single page. The poverty of the English tongue should not create problems for other languages. --Vahag (talk) 22:52, 2 January 2014 (UTC)
• Strong keep. Matthias Buchmeier (talk) 21:49, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

Kept. --Anatoli ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 23:00, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

--Anatoli ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 23:01, 18 March 2014 (UTC)