Talk:opposite sex

Deletion debate

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.

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same sex

opposite sex

Two truly terrible entries. What is there to be inferred that isn't obvious from same/opposite and sex? -- Liliana • 13:12, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

Delete both. --WikiTiki89 18:30, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

Keep as common collocations. Orders of magnitude more common than ‘other sex’, ‘contrary sex’, ‘opposing sex’ etc. Needs a better definition and some good citations though. Ƿidsiþ 15:09, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

If we were to keep this, how would we define it in a way that's not worse than having no entry at all? At the moment we just say it's the sex that's the same and the sex that's opposite. Mglovesfun (talk) 18:41, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

Well, as an example, the OED defines opposite sex as ‘women as opposed to men (or vice versa)’. I think most definitions are better than none at all, especially if the entry has a good representative sample of citations showing how the term is used in practice. Ƿidsiþ 14:59, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

Delete both.​—msh210℠ (talk) 06:16, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

• Keep, although not really sure. For "opposite sex" I am a bit more certain, since sex is basically a complementary characteristic rather than polar one and thus "opposite" is something of a misnomer and thereby idiomatic; furthermore, “opposite sex”, in OneLook Dictionary Search. shows some other dicts keep it; finally, it seems to be a set phrase. “same sex”, in OneLook Dictionary Search. shows some dictionaries have "same-sex" ranked as an adjective. --Dan Polansky (talk) 21:28, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

  The word opposite frequently refers to other in a set of two complementary terms. Even look at our definition number 3 and its usage example. --WikiTiki89 21:39, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

  Well, we have a definition 3 of "opposite" but it is unclear in which cases other than "opposite sex" it is being used and how common it is. One more thing: translation target, for German "anderes Geschlecht". --Dan Polansky (talk) 22:02, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

  "opposite charge", "opposite polarity", "opposite value" (for booleans), "opposite team", etc. It can be used with anything that there are two of. As for German, the term ander can be given as a translation for definition 3 of opposite. --WikiTiki89 22:10, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

Inclusion in well-known dictionaries is a good indication that someone already considered this term a word. Not only German but in East Asian languages (Chinese, Japanese, Korean), where 異 means "different", "other" is part of the word - 異性 (异性), 이성. Chinese, Japanese, Korean translations are all considered words. Keep as idiomatic. --Anatoli ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 22:38, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

I suggest the definition from the opposite sex in Collins dictionary - "women in relation to men or men in relation to women" and adding "the " to the headword. I have also added [[same sex]] as an alternative adjective form for [[same-sex]]. --Anatoli ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 01:10, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

• Keep, the degree to which this is a common combination makes it likely that readers will look it up as a phrase. bd2412 T 03:06, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

  According to which study that you've conducted? --WikiTiki89 03:09, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

Common terms are frequently looked up. Gender, sex and sexuality are known to be popular topics, this also shows in Wictionary entries. "opposite sex" in Google Books - about 1,260,000 results, "same sex" in Google Books - about 1,480,000 results (this includes adjectives and spellings with a hyphen). The equivalent foreign language terms are similarly common. --Anatoli ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 03:18, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

I didn't say they aren't common. I just meant that we have absolutely no way of knowing what people are likely to look up. We really need to have some kind of hit counter on each entry so we can do some kind of statistical analysis. --WikiTiki89 03:22, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

Keep both. Lemmings (“opposite sex”, in OneLook Dictionary Search. “same sex”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.) etc. DCDuring TALK 04:10, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

While OneLook gives some support to "opposite sex", all hits for "same sex" are for the hyphenated form same-sex. Delete at least "same sex". --Hekaheka (talk) 05:10, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

If the noun [[same sex]] is not confirmed as idiomatic, it should be converted into a translation target only entry and kept anyway, in East Asian languages the term is definitely considered a single word and exists in dictionaries. They are also bases for expressions like "same-sex marriage", etc., in these languages, where the first part is a noun. --Anatoli ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 19:35, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

They seem pretty SOP to me, both the Han version 同 (“same”) + 性 (“gender, sex”) and the Hangeul version 동 (dong, “same”) + 성 (seong, “gender, sex”) (although we are missing the definition "same" of 동 (dong)). --WikiTiki89 19:58, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

Not unless we go back to Classical Chinese, which was monosyllabic. Most Japanese, Chinese, Korean dictionaries disagree with you. Besides, 性 is a also noun forming suffix, not just "gender", like -ness, so "同性" is also "sameness", not just same sex but "homosexual" (n. and adj.) and "homosexuality", "共同性" is "common feature". 同性 has a number of derivations to do with sameness, congeniality and homosexuality, e.g. "同性质" - congeniality - quality (質/质) of being the same in nature. An example: "同性相斥，异性相吸" (tóngxìng xiāng chì, yìxìng xiāng xī) - "polarities repel each other, opposites attract", which can also be used in reference to genders but also of something similar and different in nature (the expression uses both Chinese "same sex" and "opposite sex" terms, which have more meanings). --Anatoli ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 22:53, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

Nothing you just said makes it any less SOP. Basically what you just said is that the second part of "性" has at least two definitions ("-ness" and "gender/sex"), both of which carry on to "同性" ("sameness" and "same gender/sex"). If anything, that makes it even more SOP. The "homosexual(ity)" meanings of "同性" might be idiomatic, but they would be listed as translations of [[homosexual]] and [[homosexuality]], not of [[same sex]]. Also, the fact that it has idiomatic derivatives doesn't make the term itself idiomatic. So as far as the entry [[same sex]] is concerned, there is no absolute need for it to house the translation "同性". --WikiTiki89 23:10, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

It seems like obsession with SoP-ness. Go ahead and RFD 同性, 동성, I'm not subscribing to this. --Anatoli ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 23:21, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

I see no reason to RFD them. As you said they can be used idiomatically. I was only saying that the "same sex" definition is SOP and therefore cannot be used as an argument for keeping [[same sex]] as a translation-only page. --WikiTiki89 23:33, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

By the way, what is the difference between 性 and 性別? I'm trying to understand why 性 is not listed in translations of sex or gender. It could be that I was wrong the whole time due to the poor design of our Chinese entries. --WikiTiki89 23:38, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

Re: the difference between 性 and 性別. The latter is used as a separate term, the former usually as a component, suffix of another, longer term but can be used separately in some cases. An individual character carries a general meaning (often without a clear part of speech) but not necessarily is used on its own, which causes problems in defining, it needs a lot of examples and long lists of derivations. They are like building blocks to form words and phrases. 医药 is medicine (medical + drug) (药 on its own is too ambiguous) but "to take medicine" is 吃药 (eat + drug), using a single character, because the context is clear. --Anatoli ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 23:53, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

So would it be wrong to list 性 as a translation of sex and gender? --WikiTiki89 00:04, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

性 is only as a component in this case. Some cases are arguable, like 香烟 - cigarette but 烟 is also used separately in this sense, we had a bit of disagreement with Tooironic over this in translations of cigarette. The fact that 性 is not used separately is neither helping nor contradicting your argument. --Anatoli ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 00:18, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

My argument is that "同性" can be derived from the translations at [[same]] and [[gender]]/[[sex]]. So, yes, it does matter. --WikiTiki89 00:45, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

As I said, 性 is usually not used separately but as a component or a word in expression from Classical Chinese, e.g 阳性 (yángxìng), 阴性 (yīnxìng), which can be translated both as "masculine" and "feminine" (nouns) or "masculine gender" and "feminine gender" (collocations) but characters 陽/阳 (yáng) and 陰/阴 (yīn) have too many meanings to define them separately as "masculine" and "feminine", to make 阳性 and 阴性 SoP's. By usually I mean it's not a clear-cut case (if it's possible in Chinese). 性 may also form attributive noun expressions like 性的要求 (xìng de yāoqiú) - "sexual desire", where 性 is an attributive noun with a possessive particle 的. --Anatoli ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 01:07, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

So are there words formed with 性 (like 性的要求) that are considered SOP? --WikiTiki89 01:15, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

Yes, if you insist, only I have a different view on SoP. 性的 is a perfect translation of "sexual" (adjective), even if the lemma is 性, it's an attributive noun with a particle and 性 is not used separately to mean "sex", "gender". Like 阳性, 阴性, 同性 is considered a word, not a collocation in Chinese (note for Japanese speakers - 性的 is a separate adjective (adjectival noun) in Japanese but not in Chinese). --Anatoli ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 01:38, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

In English, the word coalmine is 100% SOP, even though it is a "word". The only reason we include it is because of a rules in CFI that says that anything that is written as a word (without spaces) can be included (some say this is in case a reader does not know where to split the word). I don't know much about how compound words work in Chinese, but there is certainly no distinction between a compound with a space and one without a space because Chinese does not have spaces. Therefore, this rules about things being written as one word cannot apply to Chinese or else we would have to include entire sentences as "words". So my question is, what is the difference in Chinese between a "word" and noun phrase? --WikiTiki89 01:51, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

• Keep In no particular order: it's a common collocation, there is 異性(いせい) (isei), there are more than two sexes, and sex is a continuum. "opposite sex" contains faulty assumptions like weaker sex. Haplogy (話) 00:49, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

  Let me bring in an example from American politics: The Democratic Party and the Republican Party are often seen as opposites. There are other parties, but for many people it's just a two-party system. The existence of other parties does not make "opposite party" and "same party" idiomatic. --WikiTiki89 01:11, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

  Doesn't that make a stronger case for keeping "opposite sex"? If you referred to two people as being of "opposite parties", the reader might well guess that you meant one was a member of the communist party and the other was a member of the Nazi party (or some other approximation equating party identification with a political extreme). Where two people are of the opposite sex, however, it is taken to mean that one is male and the other female, no matter their sexual identity or sexual politics. bd2412 T 02:23, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

  That made no sense to me. When a member of the Republican party is meeting with some of the "opposite party" it means a member of the Democratic Party (like I said, I'm referring to American politics), not the communist or Nazi party. --WikiTiki89 02:35, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

• 'keep both, per Polansky Pass a Method (talk) 20:30, 23 December 2013 (UTC)
• Keep both, especially opposite sex. Donnanz (talk) 18:33, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

Both kept. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 12:44, 13 January 2014 (UTC)