Talk:dead against

RFD discussion: February–April 2021

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dead against

NISoP, from User:Doremitzwr. DCDuring (talk) 14:00, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

Does dead against mean “no longer living” + “in opposition to”? Then it is indeed a sum of parts. Otherwise, Keep.  --Lambiam 14:06, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

So, your general argument would be that any attestable combination of polysemic words is entryworthy? Almost all combinations of words are semantically restricted. DCDuring (talk) 14:21, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

Our dead adverb gives probably too many examples: "dead wrong; dead set; dead serious; dead drunk; dead broke; dead earnest; dead certain; dead slow; dead sure; dead simple; dead honest; dead accurate; dead easy; dead scared; dead solid; dead black; dead white; dead empty". They don't seem too different from this one. Equinox ◑ 16:02, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

and a dead pigeon. – Jberkel 16:15, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

What on earth do you mean? That's no adverb, nor the same sense. Although what I am seeing in this discussion is a dead horse getting a thorough thrashing. Equinox ◑ 22:28, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

Or perhaps a deceased parrot? Mihia (talk) 22:37, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

Weak keep on the basis that phrases of the form "dead + preposition" (in the relevant sense of "dead") seem relatively uncommon, and e.g. we do not commonly say the likes of "I'm dead for legalising cannabis" or "I'm dead with the others on this issue". Mihia (talk) 18:54, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

It looks to me like this is an ellipsis of dead set against, which is really SOP as dead set + against. As for the lack of "dead for", I think that comes from a semantic property of dead: it tends to accompany negative or unpleasant things, with the few positive ones being unpleasant or negative on the surface, but good in an underlying sense. Compare stark/starkly. If you look at "dead set in opposition and "dead set in favor" it becomes a bit clearer. Chuck Entz (talk) 22:19, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

I don't personally have any perception that "dead against" is specifically an ellipsis of "dead set against". On the other point, people say "You're dead right", "I'm dead happy" (or "dead chuffed"), "It was dead good", "He was dead nice", "He was dead friendly", and so forth, all of which are positive. (Some of these expressions with "dead" may BrE-flavoured or BrE-only -- I'm not sure.) Mihia (talk) 22:36, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

The ngram data is sort of the opposite of what I would expect to see if this were the case, in that "dead against" has a much stronger showing out of the gate, and gradually loses popularity while "dead set against" becomes more popular. Moreover, if you look at early quotes for "dead set against", most of them involve noun phrases headed by "set". e.g. "we cannot shake off the apprehension that there is , in various quarters , what may be called a dead set against the lawful power of the Conference". The "to be dead set against X" construction doesn't seem to appear until after "to be dead against X" is already well-established. Colin M (talk) 20:32, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

Delete. After re-examination, I now think that “to be dead against something” should be bracketed as “to be dead [against something]”, and not “to be [dead against] something”, so this juxtaposition of an adverb and a preposition is accidental, not unlike those seen in “totally against”^[1] and “one hundred percent against”,^[2] or, for that matter, “fully in favour of”.^[3]  --Lambiam 13:34, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

I'm afraid I can't agree with that at all. Mihia (talk) 15:16, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

"Opinions on the proposal please."
– "For."
– "Against."
– "Undecided."
– "Dead against."
Mihia (talk) 15:19, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

Also, these are impossible: "In what way/manner are you against it?" / "Dead."; "How much/strongly are you against it?" "Dead." Mihia (talk) 15:25, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

I analyze the reply "For" as elliptic for "[I am] for [the proposal]", so "for" is a preposition with a null object. Likewise, the reply "dead against" is "dead [against ∅]".  --Lambiam 10:20, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

• Leaning keep, given that if you lean Bob's corpse on a dresser you can correctly say that Bob is dead against that dresser. bd2412 T 19:24, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

Keep. Too hard to figure out its meaning from analyzing its parts. Imetsia (talk) 20:19, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

• Keep one sense, delete the other. Despite there only being one gloss, the current quotations have two completely different meanings. I think we should keep the figurative sense (= "opposed to") as seen in the second quotation but lose the literal sense (= "in the opposite direction") which is pretty clearly SOP. BigDom 20:39, 22 February 2021 (UTC)
• Keep. According to a few sources (e.g. A, B, as well as OED), this was originally a nautical term to describe a wind blowing directly opposite a ship's course (cf. dead wind), which later acquired its figurative meaning. The fact that some very smart people in this very thread have analysed the term incorrectly is clear evidence that it cannot be easily understood as SoP. Colin M (talk) 20:45, 22 February 2021 (UTC)
• Keep per Colin M. Khemehekis (talk) 10:31, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

• Keep — Dentonius 18:49, 27 February 2021 (UTC)

• Vote is stricken. Imetsia (talk) 00:13, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

Keep. ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 19:50, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

RFD-kept. Imetsia (talk) 00:13, 3 April 2021 (UTC)