Talk:dream house

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Latest comment: 8 years ago by -sche in topic RFD
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RFD[edit]

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Delete. SOP, I think. -- · (talk) 04:05, 7 July 2015 (UTC)Reply

A "dream house" could exist only in dreams, but that's not what a dream house is (it's not usually from an actual dream). It could be a house for one to dream in, but it isn't. Also we don't have an adjective sense at dream (though maybe we should). WurdSnatcher (talk) 04:56, 7 July 2015 (UTC)Reply
Aw, you can have a dream car, a dream wife, a dream mobile device, and a million other "dream" objects, and they all use the same well-known sense of "dream" (which, in all such expressions, is just the noun being used attributively, not a true adjective). There's nothing about this entry worth keeping. -- · (talk) 06:04, 7 July 2015 (UTC)Reply
That is true and the expression certainly originated as SoP. However, it may be possible to attest dreamhouse in the appropriate sense. Then, by WT:COALMINE, the spaced term is also automatically included, one rationale being that the solid spelling indicates that the expression is an idiomatic unit. It is also probably true that, one can say red-brick dream house, but not dream red-brick house, which is another indicator of idiomaticity. A less formal indicator is the proliferation of the term as title of authored works and name of bands. DCDuring TALK 06:42, 7 July 2015 (UTC)Reply
But dream holiday home (a few hundred Google Books hits), not holiday dream home (two distinct hits); dream sports car (around 80 hits) not sports dream car (a couple of hits, but they all seem to be using "dream car" as a synonym of "concept car"). It's not idiomatic enough to break into other set phrases. Smurrayinchester (talk) 08:22, 7 July 2015 (UTC)Reply
Thanks. I overstated the setness, since that kind of argument has worked so well in other cases, admittedly argued by others. I was just trying to give the other view a chance. I'm agnostic on this particular expression, but I'm trying to understand the rather wide boundary zone (It's certainly not a boundary line.) between included and excluded terms. WT:COALMINE has brought so many discussions to a conclusion before there is a full discussion of other considerations.
As to dreamhouse, like dream + house its meaning can be constructed in more than one way: house of dreams, house dreamt about, house for having dreams, etc. The possibilities are many and positive, so marketers have made Barbie Dreamhouse a trademark abundantly attestable, and many titles include the term without a unique definition being obvious, affording lots of cover for other uses to hide in.
In citing dreamhouse, I found no citations in the sense in question from outside the US. It is abundant in real-estate advertisements. DCDuring TALK 14:10, 7 July 2015 (UTC)Reply
COALMINE is useful precisely because it brings discussions to a conclusion without the need for further discussion. The spaced version would be includable as an alternate spelling of the included unspaced version anyway. Incidentally, so far I have found no viable hits for dreamwife or dreammobile device. bd2412 T 20:37, 7 July 2015 (UTC)Reply
I benefited from this discussion, however much I appreciate the discussion-suppressing benefits of COALMINE in other cases. BTW, We now have dreamhouse cited, IMHO, at Citations:dreamhouse, so the discussion should now be limited to whether the citations are good. DCDuring TALK 23:24, 7 July 2015 (UTC)Reply