Talk:Greek mythology

Request for Ancient Greek translation

This entry will probably be deleted, but I'm going to go ahead and remove the request for a translation into Ancient Greek as the connotations that Greek Mythology carries cannot be reproduced in the idiom of antiquity, despite the fact that the transparent words exist: Ἑλληνικὴ μυθολογία (compare the Modern Greek). Salmoneus.Aiolides 23:49, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

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It should not be re-entered without careful consideration.

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Greek mythology

Sum of parts. In spite my tending to be an inclusionist, I see nothing in this entry that goes beyond sum of parts. I wonder what Daniel Dot, an admin who presumably knows CFI, meant by creating this entry. --Dan Polansky 11:58, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

I agree... I don't think we can really allow this without allowing entries for all other mythologies. And there's a lot of them... —CodeCat 12:03, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

I agree with CodeCat's point above that there are lots of mythologies [sic] so allowing this would allow a lot of other entries. But I don't think it's sum of parts. I supposed what makes it non-sum-of-parts is cultural knowledge rather than linguistic properties of the words. Still, I don't see any reason to exclude it other than the one given above by CodeCat. In my opinion, it meets CFI. Mglovesfun (talk) 12:07, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

I agree on deletion in principle but how does this differ from Chinese cuisine, which we decided to accept? --Hekaheka 15:20, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

I do not know whether we have decided to keep Chinese cuisine, but a RFD discussion from 2008 that lead to keeping for no consensus for deletion (only plain majority for deletion) can now be found at Talk:Japanese food. However, Japanese cuisine failed RFD in January-March 2011 (Talk:Japanese cuisine). --Dan Polansky 19:21, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

What makes you think it is non-sum-of-parts? It is the mythology of Ancient Greece. Similarly, "Roman mythology" is the mythology of Rome. What is omitted from the headword is "Ancient", but "Greek" is often used to indiscriminately refer to the stream of language and culture that contains both Ancient Greek and Modern Greek. The phrase "Greek literature" includes Ancient Greek literature, I suppose, and is no more in need of a dictionary definition. --Dan Polansky 16:36, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

I say keep, because Greek mythology doesn't mean just any mythology associated with Greece or the Greek language. For example, it does not include Christian mythology, although the most important early Christian texts are written in Greek. Therefore the phrase is not SOP. —Angr 16:40, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

My reply is same as Greek cuisine (or whatever) the Greek only tells you the relating to Greece/Ancient Greek/The Greeks, it tells you nothing of what it actually is. CFI "An expression is “idiomatic” if its full meaning cannot be easily derived from the meaning of its separate components." --Mglovesfun (talk) 16:44, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Do you mean that, in order to know what Greek mythology actually is, you have to know the Gods and the stories involved in that mythology? Compare to the "English language": in order to know what it actually is, do you need to know some of the words and some of the grammar? And, about "flying animal", in order to know what it actually is, do you need to know that there are birds and insects, their size and appearance, and that they come under the head? --Dan Polansky 16:50, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

To add another example to my comment above: if modern-day Greek children grow up with stories similar to the ones American children grow up with about Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, etc., those would be part of a [[Greek]] [[mythology]], but not part of [[Greek mythology]], meaning that the latter is not simply SOP. —Angr 18:27, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Comment. There is nothing specifically idiomatic about the specific two-word sequence "Greek mythology"; the same referent is implied even if we speak of, say, "Greek myth", or "Greek and Norse mythology". However, in the past we've been inconsistent about non-idiomatic sequences of adjective+noun when the noun's meaning causes the adjective to have a specific sense: often we've kept, often we've deleted. I've never seen a coherent distinction presented; rather, it seems that some editors consistently prefer inclusion, some consistently prefer deletion, and some are inconsistent but without explaining what difference they perceive, with the final disposition depending chiefly on who participates in the discussion and (especially) who closes it. —Ruakh_TALK 18:44, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

I think it's easier/more convenient to delete this, but I don't see in what way it doesn't meet CFI. I wouldn't mind an entry for Greek language, I'd dislike an entry for Greek cuisine and want to delete it, but again, not for CFI reasons, just because I don't think we should have it. --Mglovesfun (talk) 19:13, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

MG, let me try another question: does the definition "The body of myths and legends belonging to the ancient Greeks concerning their gods and heroes, the nature of the world, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices" tell you something about "Greek mythology" what you did not know from the definitions of "Greek" ("Of or relating to Greece, the Greek people, or the Greek language") and "mythology" ("The collection of myths of a people, concerning the origin of the people, history, deities, ancestors and heroes"? --Dan Polansky 19:36, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

• Keep, although it's a bit borderline. Ƿidsiþ 15:03, 16 April 2011 (UTC)
• Delete per Ruakh's comment about collocation.​—msh210℠ (talk) 04:58, 17 April 2011 (UTC)
• Delete. Mglovesfun (talk) 10:58, 17 April 2011 (UTC)
• Delete, or else there's nothing that keeps me from entering Finnish mythology, Norse mythology... :) --Hekaheka 14:31, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

On the more serious side: do we need urban mythology? --Hekaheka 14:33, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

• Delete, probably. But on the other hand we do have Egyptian pyramid and how would this differ? ---> Tooironic 07:25, 19 April 2011 (UTC)
• FWIW if I wanted to make a keep argument, it would be the same as Angr's. Mglovesfun (talk) 10:47, 20 April 2011 (UTC)
• Delete. As usual, with a SoP title that works well for 'Pedia, it is difficult to determine if it works for Wikt. But at the end of the day, I can't find anything about this phrase that is not covered by "mythology from Greece" and I cannot see anything that makes it different from Algonquin mythology. BTW, Tooironic asks Re Egyptian pyramid. Read the talk page, and you will see that there is a reason for this entry to exist. You could also look at the Egyptian pyramid test here.] -- ALGRIF talk 10:09, 22 April 2011 (UTC)
• Comment. It occurs to me that if were to say to you, "I saw a guy today who looked like something out of Greek mythology" you would probably get a particular sort of image that would be very different from what would come to mind if I said "I saw a guy today who looked like something out of Norse mythology". Furthermore, if I said "I saw a guy today who looked like something out of Russian mythology", I am guessing most people would draw a blank altogether about what such a person might look like. bd2412 T 03:03, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

• But is that lexical information? Compare "I saw a guy today who looked like something out of 1950s television", "I saw a guy today who looked like something out of a Jane Austen novel". —Ruakh_TALK 14:43, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

• Delete. SoP. --Vahag 17:35, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

deleted -- Liliana • 01:17, 18 July 2011 (UTC)