Talk:dredge up

RFV discussion: April 2011–January 2012

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dredge up

Rfv-sense: to dig up.

I have added a sense and an {{&lit}} to the entry, but am loath to remove the original sense. DCDuring TALK 17:34, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

I think it refers to the figurative meaning of "dig up", which AFAICT is already covered by our sense #3. Mglovesfun (talk) 18:25, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

You are probably right, but it difficult to tell because the amateurish definition uses a single polysemic term as the definiens. If we just worked on cleaning up such cases, it would be many man-years indeed. DCDuring TALK 18:43, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure there is a "used literally" sense for this; unless you are dredging in an upward direction. I'm quite tempted to rollback to before your edits, but use glosses to disambiguate as you say. Mglovesfun (talk) 09:32, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Of course there is: as in the operation of dredging a channel. In so doing one "dredges up" the muck at the bottom. That seems as literal as it gets. DCDuring TALK 15:01, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

I don't know of any 'used literally' sense so I've tagged it with rfv-sense. Mglovesfun (talk) 20:37, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

You ought to get ought more. First hit from Google books search for forms of dredge + up:

I. Twelve species of Madrcporaria were dredged up, and the majority came from midway between Cape Wrath and the Faroe Islands. Others were found off the west coast of Ireland. Many varieties of the species were also obtained, and some forms which hitherto have been considered specifically distinct from others, but which now cease to be so.

II. Three species were found, known only in the area dredged, or in the neighbouring seas." DCDuring TALK 21:10, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Cited one sense. Have we ever had to cite an {{&lit}} sense before? DCDuring TALK 21:22, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Yes we have cited such a sense before (or at least attempted it). I'm not sure this is any more literal than dig up or bring up. What I'm really saying is I prefer a definition to an {{&lit}} template. Mglovesfun (talk) 23:12, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

I'd prefer that NISoP meanings not be treated as idioms. That is one of the advantages of {{&lit}}. I'm fairly sure that there are senses of dig up and bring up that are also non-idiomatic and would benefit from using the template. Not everything that has the surface appearance of a "phrasal verb" actually is an idiomatic "phrasal verb". CGEL doesn't think that phrasal verbs are grammatically distinguishable from verb + adverb/preposition. No one has proposed any specific semantic test either. I'll have to look more carefully at the adequacy of our coverage of dredge#Verb. DCDuring TALK 02:51, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Nah if it were unidiomatic, you'd be able to dredge in any direction; I want to see proof that you can dredge down, across, left, right, sideways etc. Mglovesfun (talk) 11:15, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

I found no hits on Google Books for "dredged left" or "dredged sideways". I found many hits for "dredged down", some of which seemed to be using it as a direction. I found one for "dredged right" that seemed to be using right as a direction (the rest were hits of the form "dredged right up to town", "dredged right close to the edge"):

• 2009, Jonathan Lethem, Chronic City, page 440:

  By the time I crossed Park and Madison, retracing the tiger's park-ward pilgrimage of the night before, the city had accustomed itself, struggled to a half-life, snow dredged right and left, most parked cars only sculpture.

I am undecided as to whether this is a sense/term like dig up, or merely {{&lit}} dredge + up. - -sche (discuss) 07:19, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

I've removed the ambiguous "dig up" and left the cited literal sense. - -sche (discuss) 04:12, 31 January 2012 (UTC)