Talk:no more Mr. Nice Guy

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The following information passed a request for deletion.

This discussion is no longer live and is left here as an archive. Please do not modify this conversation, but feel free to discuss its conclusions.


Self-explanatory. --WikiTiki89 (talk) 14:50, 14 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Is it? It's very idiomatic, and certainly in widespread use. It could use some cleanup, I suppose, but that's not an rfd issue. Chuck Entz (talk) 14:57, 14 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
It's clearly (deprecated template usage) no + (deprecated template usage) more + (deprecated template usage) Mr. Nice Guy. --WikiTiki89 (talk) 15:02, 14 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
But (deprecated template usage) Mr. Nice Guy redirects to this entry, because it's only used in this phrase. Chuck Entz (talk) 15:08, 14 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
After a "quickie-rfv", I can see (deprecated template usage) Mr. Nice Guy merits an entry, at which time this phrase will be SOP. Not self-explanatory, though. Chuck Entz (talk) 15:15, 14 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I've created the entry, so I'll vote Delete Chuck Entz (talk) 15:33, 14 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Looks like I conceded too easily. Even though we now have all the parts, it does seem to be more than the sum of them. Chuck Entz (talk) 01:36, 15 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

keep not very obvious from its parts -- Liliana 15:48, 14 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Keep (deprecated template usage) no + (deprecated template usage) more + (deprecated template usage) epitome of niceness fails to convey the sense of "now I am going to get tough with you". SpinningSpark 17:02, 14 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Keep - idiomatic phrase. Spelling, capitalisation, and not-yet-written etymology & quotations would all be useful. Not obvious (to a non-native speaker) that "no more Mr Nice Guy" refers to the speaker (unlike, say "no more cookies"). Pengo (talk) 20:45, 14 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Keep, probably. Cannot come up with a good deletion argument. Mglovesfun (talk) 20:52, 14 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. More than the SoP.--Dmol (talk) 22:37, 14 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Keep. Suppose I'm "Mr. Nice Guy"; if I say "no more Mr. Nice Guy" (referring to myself), I might theoretically mean that I'm going to leave altogether, or that I'm going to stay, but instead of being "nice" I'm going to do nothing. It is not idiomatic that the "no more" in the phrase refers to a change in behavior, such that I'm still here but now acting in a "not-nice" manner contrary to my previous behavior. bd2412 T 22:40, 14 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I lean towards keep as set phrase, and possibly not obvious from parts (why "Mr"? it's not a surname). Equinox 22:45, 14 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
There is a more general idiomatic use of Mr. in Mr. <trade or profession> or Mr. <special skill> or Mr. <strange eccentricity> etc. Examples are "Mr. Plumber" and "Mr. stay-out-all-night". Perhaps a sense ought to be added to Mr. but I haven't a a clue how it could be worded. The same goes for Mrs. and Miss, and (dated) Master. There is also the odd practice of some people of addressing one as Mr. <first name> which is a peculiar blend of informal babytalk and formal address. SpinningSpark 00:20, 15 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I think there are at least two possible sources: the practice of calling someone "Mr. Hollywood" or "Mr. Baseball" may come from contests like "Miss America" that chose one exceptional individual to represent the locality, etc. The other probably is related to the snowclone "X is my middle name"- the conceit that one is so strongly associated with a particular trait that it has become part of one's name (and probably also to "look up X in the dictionary, and you'll find Y there"). The "Mr. stay out all night" type of usage reminds me of the figure of speech where you shoehorn an insult or retort into a familiar format, such as the bumper sticker that says "Don't like my driving? Call 1-800-EAT-SHIT", or "why don't you look that up at get-a-life-you-moron.com". Chuck Entz (talk) 01:36, 15 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
"No more Mr. Nice Guy" does not necessarily have to refer to the speaker. For example "His teacher found out that the whole class hadn't been doing any homework. No more Mr. Nice Guy." Also see "no more Mr. Nice Guy for me". As is demonstrated by the usage example on Mr. Nice Guy, Mr. Nice Guy does not refer to a person but to this person's behavior in certain contexts. Therefore "no more Mr. Nice Guy" cannot mean that some nice person is physically leaving. "No more Mr. Nice Guy." means nothing other than some implied person's nice behavior is no more. Also compare something like "Graduate school is keeping me so busy. No more Mr. stay-out-all-night." --WikiTiki89 (talk) 08:54, 15 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I may have missed these, but when I had a quick look, the other "no more Mr"s I found were fairly obviously derivatives of the existing nice-guy set phrase (e.g. no more Mr Fat Guy / Smart Guy). Equinox 09:16, 15 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
"no more mr" -nice -guy gives a few examples such as "No More Mr. Softy" and "No More Mr Lucky". I will agree though that the nice-guy derivatives are much, much more common. --WikiTiki89 (talk) 09:36, 15 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I've added some cites. The definition is still failing to highlight the implied threat of this phrase, but the cites do. SpinningSpark 12:37, 15 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Kept. DAVilla 09:16, 20 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]