Talk:Wheel of Fortune

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Wheel of Fortune

The Wheel of Fortune and all pages linked thereto. Wheel of Fortune is just a TV show, and TV shows don't warrant inclusion in Wikt. Friends even seems to be being deleted. --Keene 00:52, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Strong Keep: the Wheel of Fortune is an object from mythology, quite apart from the game show. --EncycloPetey 01:02, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

I have undone your bolding (apologies) as the RFD can safely be considered to apply to the game show only. What is your opinion on that? DAVilla 18:33, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Strong delete (of the TV show portion.) None of those quotations are in any way attributive; they are direct references only. --Connel MacKenzie 00:41, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm... "Wheel of Fortune prices" isn't attributive? There are a few similar web hits, so this isn't a unique incident. Sure wish I could find the rest of the quotation though. <snip> Added "Wheel of Fortune auditions" and, pathetically, "Wheel of Fortune game" and "answers". All the other quotations are meant to show that this term, as the definition of the game show, is generally understood out of context. In fact, I practially have enough evidence for Vanna White by this point.

Keep. DAVilla 18:29, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Delete. The purpose of a dictionary is to explain terms (especially words) not to promote dated TV shows and aging celebrities. This is not an RFV. --Connel MacKenzie 06:15, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Right. The purpose isn't to promote TV shows or celebrities. The fact that the TV show is dated and the celebrities aging should lay testimony to the simple conclusion that this entry is NOT promotional. Quotations make it clear that the term has entered the lexicon in this sense, and THAT IS the purpose of a dictionary. DAVilla 18:49, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

But looking at those citations, I'd say that the phrase has not entered the general lexicon as a meaningful phrase; there is widespread knowledge that it is a game show as the result of decades of advertising and promotion. (By the way, I have no idea what is meant by "WoF prices" without some context...is that too high or too low? All the rest of those aren't attributive uses; they are direct references to the specific TV show!)

Please, for a moment, compare this to Kleenex. Any facial tissue I've ever used has been called a "kleenex" despite the brand-name rarely matching. I played chess the other day. I didn't call it "Wheel Of Fortuning." I played cards another day. I didn't call it "Wheel Of Fortuning." If anyone had, they would have been misunderstood. There is nothing about those citations that isn't a direct reference to the TV show; two are perhaps figurative (can't tell for sure, without more context) but still direct references to a specific TV show. Is it a dictionary's place to list every TV show ever aired on any station, anywhere? What is the lexical value of that? Zip. Nada. Zilch. What is the promotional benefit to the TV stations? Obvious. (Even shows that aren't aired anymore, still generate some revenue from DVD releases, etc.) I'm sorry, but I just can't see the justification for keeping this. Yes, you did some excellent work finding the citations you did, but that doesn't make the term magically become non-promotional. --Connel MacKenzie 16:51, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Attributive means that it "modifies a noun and is part of the noun's noun phrase". A "New York delicatessen" also refers to the specific place, New York. The case you are thinking of with the generic kleenex is a completely separate rule as listed under WT:CFI#Names of actual people, places, and things. The meaning of attributive is grammatical in a syntactic way and has nothing to do with genericization.

Famous as a result of advertising and promotion? Perhaps. But none of the quotations are advertising or promotion, and the out-of-context proviso helps to guarantee that.

"Wheel of Fortune prices" are way too high, by the way. It was in reference to the cost of bicycles in one of the Soviet states, if I remember correctly. I was unable to locate the original quotation.

Regardless, I do believe that "Wheel of Fortune" is starting to become generic when it refers to a competitive variation of hangman based on money rather than strikes. Yes, most uses are unquestionably for the TV show, but some other quotations weakly support this generic use. One lists Wheel of Fortune with other common games: "The density of these games...can range from very simple variations of Chess, Backgammon, Hearts, or Wheel of Fortune to very complex real-time strategy games or shooters." This specifically uses Wheel of Fortune in the sense of the rule set of the game rather than the television show from which those rules were derived. The problem is that there is a fuzzy line between those definitions, on which a few other quotations are dubiously unclear, even in context.

However, the quotations on the page are not the full story. To some degree computer science texts can be classified, with programming languages falling somewhere in the middle, as "popular" (for average users) or "analytical" (in scholarly journals). I have seen a couple of uses of "Wheel of Fortune" that fall into the latter, which is very odd considering how abstract those texts can be. Unfortunately modern computer science texts in print form are for sale and not available in full online, almost as a rule.

Anyways I didn't, and still don't, consider it necessary to prove that the term is generic for it to be included. Purely idiomatic use follows from figurative use follows from common knowledge. For anything well-known, it's only a matter of time before it comes to mean something it's not. The Presidents, for incidence, are not merited for being great people, but for being famous, as well as infamous in some ways. Not all other politicians fit this mold, but some do. In fact many celebrities are more well-known today than a good number of Presidents. And odd persons from as late as the mid-20th Century have figurative meanings already uncontroversially ascribed to their names.

To say that any class should merit inclusion and not another is a bit arbitrary, almost prescriptive. The question must be framed in a literary sense. Not every politician. Not every town and village. Not every TV show. But at the same time, not excluded merely on the grounds that it is a TV show. Or a trademark. Or a swear word. The basis is not on what it is, but on the way it is used. If you accept that, then criteria as strict as you propose would throw out a very high percentage of place names, fictional characters, and political figures alike. Certainly there must be some literary justification for those? Or are we reduced to squabbling about theater in Middle England versus our living rooms, and every other form of media known to man? DAVilla 19:35, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

#1) If this truly were a generic term, it wouldn't be capitalized. The fact that it always is reinforces the fact that it is a direct reference.

#2) What dictionaries allow entries for trademarks? This is an enormous flaw for Wiktionary that cannot be permitted. This is worse than diverging from what other dictionaries do with regard to transitive/instransitive verb senses. The only reason to have a non-generic entry (such as this; a simple, direct reference to a trademark) is to promote it. We may as well have advertisements for TV stations on en.wiktionary.org if we were to allow this nonsense. --Connel MacKenzie 08:49, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

One of my dictionaries has a note at the beginning, "Neither the presence nor the absence of a designation that any entered word constitutes a trademark should be regarded as affecting the legal status of any trademark." I take this to mean that said dictionary does allow entries for at least some trademarks. —Ruakh_TALK 14:41, 3 September 2007 (UTC)