Talk:better dead than red

RFD

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better dead than red

• I would keep this one. It refers to an unintuitive meaning of "red". bd2412 T 22:08, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

  In any plausible usage context, isn't it obvious what sense of red/Red is intended? DCDuring TALK 23:17, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

  I don't think so. Consider the context of a person displaying this phrase by itself on a t-shirt, bumper sticker, or protest placard. bd2412 T 01:11, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

  So it is because the sense of red is no longer salient? ("We are all red now.") DCDuring TALK 13:05, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

  I wouldn't characterize it as a matter of saliency - it was always an unusual meaning of red, which is susceptible to numerous interpretations. We have things like a red line and red letter day that have nothing to do with the sense of "red" used in this saying. Also, there's a degree of fungibility to it. Some people even use this phrase ironically to refer to being from a red state. bd2412 T 15:58, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

  It was highly salient when the expression first came to be used in the US. Now it is archaic or, at least, dated. DCDuring TALK 16:03, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

  Even so, the primary meaning of "red" has always been the color. The expression never meant better dead than literally being the color red. bd2412 T 16:05, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

  We have never had a consensus that the only sense of a word that should be considered in determining transparency was the single primary sense. If anything that view has consistently been rejected. Is the principle implicit in your statement only applicable to proverbs? DCDuring TALK 16:24, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

  We have, however, generally held that a term should be included where the sense of an included term is not the primary sense and it would be difficult to determine which other sense was intended from reading the phrase. bd2412 T 16:37, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

  So which alternative sense is the likely source of confusion here? DCDuring TALK 17:39, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

  Any of them - red-haired, a red wine drinker, at a red light. bd2412 T 18:01, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

  So I guess it's a keep, then. DCDuring TALK 18:55, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

I agree that the sense of "red" isn't obvious in the abstract, without context, but I'd suggest it also isn't obvious in almost any statement about the "red" Communist menace (or whatever it's supposed to be); yet we don't include sentences like "we must stop the reds!" simply because they aren't ginger-haired girls. Again it seems to come down to the "set phrase". To me, this one seems like a historical-political slogan, thus deletable; but not deletable for the reason of having "red" in it, only because it's a propaganda line rather than a proverb. DCD will have a field day. But feels like common sense... Equinox ◑ 08:33, 25 July 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps there is more going on the statement than just having "red" in it, in the sense of "we must stop the reds!" It really means, "I would rather be dead than be a communist/under communist rule," as opposed to "I would rather you be dead." bd2412 T 16:53, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

I've thought of it referring to anyone in a kind of declarative/descriptive usage: "Anyone would be better of dead rather than under Commie/pinko rule", or to the speaker: "I, wearer of this t-shirt, hereby declare that I would fight to the death rather than submit to Commie/pinko rule." DCDuring TALK 00:15, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

Well I think it's about more than submitting to rule. The speaker is declaring that they would rather die than become a communist, irrespective of the means by which they become one. bd2412 T 00:46, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

Delete per Equinox. - -sche (discuss) 06:05, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

• Keep based on the lemming principle. (See “better dead than red”, in OneLook Dictionary Search..) It is also included in books of proverbs that include modern ones. DCDuring TALK 21:48, 1 September 2015 (UTC)
• Keep it sooner than not since oxforddictionaries.com has it[1]. bd2412's link to a T-shirt is also worth consideration: on the T-shirt, there is no context helping to disambiguate. --Dan Polansky (talk) 18:28, 7 September 2015 (UTC)

  I don't think the lack of context assumption is true. The context almost always includes/d an American flag and patriotic emblems and sayings. Other context may include a gun rack, tattoos, etc. DCDuring TALK 15:58, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

  The three links that I provided above do not contain such context. Also, I'm not sure how helpful the "context" of an American flag or other patriotic emblem appearing in a image would be. bd2412 T 13:47, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

• Keep: Per lemmings and/or per red being ambiguous. Purplebackpack89 16:03, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

No consensus to delete. bd2412 T 13:45, 21 September 2015 (UTC)