Talk:in pain

Deletion debate

The following information has failed Wiktionary's deletion process.

It should not be re-entered without careful consideration.

---

in pain

SoP (definition is "experiencing pain"); cf. in joy, in sadness, in misery, etc.​—msh210℠ 19:18, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Yep, definitely delete. ---> Tooironic 23:43, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Delete, notwithstanding the polysemy of the constituents, oft advanced as automatically warranting inclusion. DCDuring TALK 00:04, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Ironically msh210 you've picked three examples that don't work very well. However in should have a sense "currently experiencing", per in agony. However then in love would be SoP. Mglovesfun (talk) 09:00, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Re whether my examples (in joy, in sadness, in misery) work, see e.g. google:"off in sadness". Re a new sense of in, we have it: 10. Denoting a state of the subject. He stalked away in anger. John is in a coma.​—msh210℠ 14:37, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

A PP headed by (deprecated template usage) in in this sense could adjectivally modify a noun in any function, not just subject, and adverbially modify an adjective, adverb, verb, or a whole sentence. The definition seems to limited. DCDuring TALK 16:07, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Subject here can mean not the subject of the sentence but the subject of the PP (i.e., not the grammar sense of subject but the "main topic of a discussion" sense). (As the author of this definition line, I can assure you that that was, indeed, the intent.) Feel free to better the definition line, of course, but it does apply to in pain, no?​—msh210℠ 16:37, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Generalizing "subject" doesn't save the wording of the sense unless adjectives, adverbs, verbs and sentences fall under that term. I agree that there should be a definition that applies to "in pain" and would hope (against experience) that I could rely on Wiktionary to have it. Maybe we can't do long entries (as that for "in") well and therefore need SOP entries like "in pain" that are minimally tainted with idiomaticity so as to provide coverage. I certainly lack the chops to tackle an entry section like in#Preposition, distinguishing and attesting all the senses. I find I can't always read the entries of MWOnline (or RHU or AHD), let alone OED, for such words and keep track of all the distinctions made. DCDuring TALK 17:15, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

• It can't be used with all emotions/feelings (as MSH's examples show), but there are several. In love, in pain, in debt, in doubt, in hope, in sickness and in health.... Unfortunately most of these are difficult to translate and rather idiomatic. We could cover it with a sense at (deprecated template usage) in (the OED has "Of condition or state, physical, mental, or moral"), and we should have that, but maybe it would be useful to have entries for some of the collocations too. Ƿidsiþ 09:12, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Weak keep delete waffle. I'm not sure what to do here. The trick is that the sense of "in" just can't be thrown onto any stative noun. If someone came up to me and said, "I'm in sadness," I'd....well, I don't know what I'd do, but it isn't proper English. Quite frankly, I don't think that any of msh210's examples really work. At the same time, there are a few of them that can take it: love, debt, remission, mourning, agony. I guess, to me, it's about numbers. If there are maybe twenty nouns which can take this sense and still sound like real English, then I'd be ok with having collocation entries for all of them. If there are 2,000, then I'd just say add a sense to "in." But.....in love and in pain are just such common collocations, I might say leave them anyway. -Atelaes λάλει ἐμοί 12:33, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

I agree with this. Also, I've just noticed that the OED notes that the construction can sometimes be used with concrete nouns, and it gives some examples like "in flower", "in tears"...again rather idiomatic constructions, yet not uncommon. Ƿidsiþ 12:41, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Also, the nouns can be modified in various ways, eg "in so much pain" "in any pain", that are frequent, at least in writings and numerous ("harrowing", "godawful", "gut-wrenching").

Is this really justified as a Phrasebook entry? Are we meeting the needs of any users when we refuse to provide some filtering of the mass of collocations of English words? If frequency is a criterion, would anyone trouble to operationalize it? Is this of any interest to us linguistically? Should we really include every MWE minimally tainted with idiomaticity under any of the numerous definitions or criteria advanced? DCDuring TALK 14:11, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Sure, because most users come here looking for some "filtering of the mass of collocations of English words". Not definitions or translations. What do you imagine, someone will bother to look up (deprecated template usage) in pain and then say, "I was hoping the bastards would have filtered this out...fuck this, I'm heading for UrbanDictionary"? These arguments are not about more or less content for users, they are about giving editors a manageable and internally-consistent way of providing the content. (Saying all that, I'm still not sure whether this should be kept or not..) Ƿidsiþ 14:43, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

We are apparently in wholehearted agreement that we could dispense with the prominent placement of everything other than definitions and translations in an entry. But whether or not we have an entry for something conveys information. If we have an entry for an MWE that is not truly idiomatic we are implying that it needs to be looked up and that there are no meaning-construction rules to be learned. Learning the way prepositions head prepositional phrases is about as basic in English as case endings are in inflected languages. DCDuring TALK 15:58, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

(from the left) For (deprecated template usage) in + noun, the meanings vary quite a lot, which is one reason to consider them idiomatic. As native speakers we're so familiar with these common terms that they appear not to be idiomatic. Sometimes we get so obsessed with "sum of parts" that we nominate valid entries. Are we worried about having too many entries? Certainly just because lots of English terms start with (deprecated template usage) in isn't alone a reason to delete them all. Our criteria still apply. Mglovesfun (talk) 07:59, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Strong delete. We're just looking at words and terms, not context or encyclopedia content. Why not in love, in luck, out of luck, feeling good, etc.? Because anyone who knows what "in" and "love" are can figure out "in love".Facts707 11:49, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Wow, I just looked at my post and in love and out of luck have entries. It'd be a hard sell for out of luck, but in love is silly, it's obviously just being in a state of love, like in pain is just being in a state of pain.Facts707

Deleted.​—msh210℠ 15:56, 2 June 2010 (UTC)