Talk:бог знает какой

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.

---

бог знает какой

SoP. Literally: "God knows what sort of". --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 10:34, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

Keep This should be understood as a phrase with figurative overtones in a sense along with that it can clearly mean the literal sense above. I think that the phrase is not uncommon as a single adjectival phrase, found in some фразеологический словарь. The definitions in the entry can be edited to more literally-sounding ones, though. --spu 11:56, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

@Wikispu: The idiomatic part of both this and the one below (бог весть какой) is бог зна́ет (box znájet) and бог весть (box vestʹ) = similar to God knows. It can be followed by so many other question words - где, куда, когда, зачем, почему, откуда, как, also with other parts of speech, e.g. бог его знает. The usage of весть (vestʹ) is of special interest. бог зна́ет (box znájet, “God knows”) can be replaced with чёрт зна́ет (čort znájet, “devil knows”). (I have combined the two RFD's)--Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 00:43, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

@Atitarev: Considering the gist of these phrases, it's pretty rare that the part бог зна́ет (box znájet) can stand alone as a single expression, whereas God knows can be understood to be exclusively made up of the two words with or without complements that could follow it, as well as being an interjection; plus the two words in the English phrase mostly refer to what the words literally mean, while the Russian phrase may or may not refer to that loosely. I agree the part in the Russian phrase by themselves have idiomatic senses but this phrase is complete with another complement out of a fair amount of varients between or after them as чёрт зна́ет (čort znájet, “devil knows”) has to be: concurrently, the entry of that phrase is чёрт его знает with other parts of speech which complement it listed in See also in that page, not making it into чёрт знает for the sake of the gist that might have been boiled down to the two words. And also in Викисловарь, the entry of бог зна́ет (box znájet) is бог знает что. All things considered, it's worth keeping the phrases with какой, sicne the usage of весть is, as you mentioned, of special interest and that could let people looking up the phrase go to extra lengths to learn the usage parsing it out, when they can simply understand it as an idiomatic expression with or without strict literal senses. The bottom line is, the entries can work as the exemplary forms including бог зна́ет (box znájet).--spu 13:07, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

• Keep - added a defined term, hyphenation, example -- Dentonius (my politics | talk) 07:52, 5 October 2020 (UTC)

RFD kept — Dentonius 06:12, 16 December 2020 (UTC)