Talk:pompatus

Meaning

Okay, this is silly. If the word's going to be attested, then it has to mean something, or if it means nothing, then it has to at least mean that. But saying it's a nonce word doesn't help anything. So look at these quotations and tell me what it means:

• [1]

  and DOZENS more of the greatest shamans of shagbonics preaching the pompatus of poontang to you EVERY FRIGGIN DAY!

• [2]

  did you marry Lava Girl

  No, but I am messing with my pompatus now.

  Pompatus Of Love? :-D

  Depends on how you use it.

• [3]

  Looks more like a "Touchdown Jesus" to me. It's in Ohio.

  Are we sure it's not just a big manatee in a really good disguise?

  I don't care it it rains or freezes / 'Long at I've got my Manateesus / Riding on the dash board of my car.

  The manatee was George.

  I am the pompatus.

  Pulpitude is all you need.

  The only evidence for that is a pocryphal. And not even a good pocryphal.

• [4]

  Am I the only one willing to admit that I'm a chord nerd that drools over have you met miss jones? I really am...

  I'll admit that I'm a chord nerd, and a tone scientist, but I'm also a rhythm king, the sultan of swing, and the ayatollah of rock and rolla.

  For which pompatus do you speak?

  Alright -- somebody caught the allusion!

• [5]

  Just what *is* a love muffin, if not a body part?

  A body part, serving a similar purpose to the Pompatus.

  Is it located near the love handle?

  How else do you expect to be able to handle the muffin?

• [6]

  I never said *I* wasn't pompous. In fact, I'm the Pompatus of hsv.general.

• [7]

  LOST: pompatus. Not the pompatus of love, but the *other* pompatus. Generous reward.

And if there's no common meaning then just delete it already. DAVilla 18:18, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

RFV discussion: December 2006–April 2007

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Nonce. Or is it more widely used with this "meaning?" --Connel MacKenzie 18:53, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

We could of course establish criteria that would allow for certain nonce words, if they are well-known as nonces, as is this one. DAVilla 19:34, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Verification would be the song itself, as it is durably archived. Wikipedia has an article on it, as well. Should this not be a "nonce" word? I'm unsure what you're looking for here. I vote keep. 208.255.229.66 20:23, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

The song, and another by the same author, only count towards one independent instance of use. Any discussion of the meaning of the lyrics would be mention, not use. There should be two other independent instances of use to meet the inclusion criteria. DAVilla 19:34, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

My 3 cites are the song, the movie "The Pompatus of Love" [8] and The Straight Dope, which publishes their questions in book form. How would you like these cites added to the word's page? 208.255.229.66 20:23, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Very much. But as I said, a key element is use as opposed to mention. From what I read on Wikipedia, it doesn't appear that the movie actually used the word any more than discussing it, although a quotation could help settle that. I very highly doubt that The Straight Dope would have used it though. The Straight Dope certainly doesn't count as use. See the intro of Wikipedia:Use-mention distinction. DAVilla 19:53, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

No definition. No google book hits. Delete the stupid thing. SemperBlotto 19:58, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Having a meaning is not one of the inclusion criteria. [Edit: but it does need a definition, meaning or not. See Talk:pompatus.] Book hits are not indicative of use, as per douchebaggery above. But yes, I suspect it will eventually be deleted. DAVilla 20:08, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

There are 34 google book hits. 208.255.229.66 20:23, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Google isn't the be all end all here. Problem is, this word doesn't have much use, per se. Plenty of words in the wiktionary (like Lewis Carroll words) are defined here, though they don't have use in day-to-day speaking. It also doesn't have a definition. I think a word as notable as this is worthy of inclusion, however. I will try to find some instances of use, but I am doubtful. As it remains I would still like to see its inclusion. Also, this word meets 3 of 4 instances of criteria for inclusion: 1, 2, and 4. If this is not a good candidate I don’t know what is. 1. Clearly widespread use, 2. Usage in a well-known work, 3. Appearance in a refereed academic journal, or 4. Usage in permanently recorded media, conveying meaning, in at least three independent instances spanning at least a year. 208.255.229.66 20:23, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Everybody interested in this question should definitely read The Straight Dope on it, if you haven't already.

It's clear, then, that our definition is bogus (or at least incomplete); what we need to say is something more like

Misstating in the Steve Miller Band song The Joker of the nonce word puppetutes (or perhaps "'pulpitudes'"), from the 1954 Medallions song The Letter, composed by Vernon Green.

Alternative spellings: pompitous.

(Or perhaps some of that should be moved to an Etymology section.)

Having fixed the definition, it's still an open question whether to keep the entry at all. Personally, while I'm no expert on the nuances of our CFI, and though I dislike mundane nonce words in general, this is clearly no mundane nonce word, and I'd strongly favor keeping it solely on the strength of how often the question comes up and how likely it is that a curious reader would go to an allegedly-comprehensive dictionary to answer the question, "What the heck does that mean?", even if the answer turns out to be "not much".

(Further to this, it occurs to me that rather than focusing on frequency of use in durably-archived / reasonably-authoritative media, it would be nice if our CFI could somehow address likelihood of lookup by a hypothetical reader, where the likelihood is clearly much greater for a word like "pompatus" than it is for anything at WT:LOP. But I have no idea how we might go about rating this likelihood with any objectivity, and this RfV entry isn't the place to explore the question. —scs 02:26, 19 December 2006 (UTC))

You wouldn't mean, like a milti-level Wiktionary, would you? I thought that dead horse was beat through the ground, seven feet under. Move to RFD and DELETE already. --Connel MacKenzie 04:31, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

(You're right, that wouldn't be what I meant. :-) I was speculating about CFI in general, not in the context of this RfV entry. I was wondering if there might be a way to make CFI more useful to readers, by tying it to the likelihood they might want to look up a word, as opposed to the number of times the authors of durably-published pieces have already used the word. But as I said, this RfV entry isn't really the place for that speculation.

Me, I'm wondering why you keep beating the horse of "m-l WT is dead; move to RfD and delete already"! If there was a decision to abandon all fine-grained tagging which might underlie a hypothetical multi-level Wiktionary -- tagging which I think I was at least as much in favor of as Hippietrail -- I think I missed it. But this RfV entry certainly isn't the place for that discussion, either. —scs 05:43, 19 December 2006 (UTC))

AFAIK, the underlying tagging has not been abandoned at all. But the various technical approaches to implementing a multi-level Wiktionary are misunderstood, as they repeatedly are brushed off or beaten down. --Connel MacKenzie 17:28, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

But I freely concede that it's a debatable point, and that a strict reading of our charter and policies might indeed lead to a conclusion to delete. —scs 23:41, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

scs, I agree with your opinion completely. As for nuances for CFI, I feel if they aren't explicitly stated, it shoudln't be set in stone. Just my opinion. As far as the Straight Dope article, I've read it, and it seems to me Miller was at most influenced by that song/word. If you listen to the original and then The Joker, you can tell it is two different words, so etymology would be a good place to insert that info, rather than definition. 70.153.195.164 01:39, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

No disputing that it appears in the title of a movie, The Pompatus of Love (although the movie is in part addressed to the nonce value of the word in the song). bd2412 T 17:19, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Added some good cites, including conveying meaning, etc. sewnmouthsecret 20:48, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Unfortunately your 2003 Matt Groening quotation is a prime example of mention. Giving the word a definition is not equivalent to using it. It's interesting though that he claims the word is in the OED. I'd be interested in knowing what that says. It looks like there are just enough cites, apart from that, to define pompatus as "someone who acts with pomp". But that wouldn't fit the song at all. DAVilla 17:43, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

It's not in OED2+ online, even in the full text. It is in the full text of OED2 online, but not in English, only as the past p. of the Latin pompare --Enginear 21:34, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Oddly, about half of Google books hits seem to be in Latin (or maybe Italian) - a real word in a foreign tongue? bd2412 T 03:38, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, it is apparently also a masculine Latin noun, but the meaning I don't know. DAVilla 17:31, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, "pompa" is apparently pomp (or a solemn procession). How would that decline? bd2412 T 00:41, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

RFV failed for this meaning. Errr... this definition line. DAVilla 18:45, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

RFV discussion: March 2011–January 2012

This entry has survived Wiktionary's verification process (permalink).

Please do not re-nominate for verification without comprehensive reasons for doing so.

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pompatus

English. "One who is pompous". The term was used in a Steve Miller song in the phrase "pompatus of love". In some sense the song is a "well-known work". But as with all such hapax legomena, it is quite unclear what the actual meaning of the term is. The entry contains one other apparently valid use. I moved a mention to citations. As I read the history, this seems to have failed RfV, but not been deleted. As it only needs one citation and there has even been a movie with the title "Pompatus of Love", I am offering it for reconsideration here. (The low-grossing movie involves four guys sitting in a bar trying to determine the meaning of the "pompatus of love" from the song.) DCDuring TALK 11:48, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

There are three citations, but I'm not confident that any two of the three support the same sense. Mglovesfun (talk) 20:02, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

In the pop music world, Gangster of Love might be a well-known work. It is almost certainly better known by more people than, say, Finnegan's Wake: For example, more people can recite parts of it. There are two competing theories about the meaning of the word, which are comparable to the authority- and etymology-based "meanings" assigned to other words dependent on the "well-known work" exception to normal attestation. Relying on such eisegeses of a small number of "experts" for meaning seems contrary to what Wiktionary tries to do. DCDuring TALK 00:33, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

This is used a few times on Usenet, too, so I'm going to mark it passed. - -sche (discuss) 19:54, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

RFV discussion (2016)

The following discussion has been moved from the page WT:RFV.

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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pompatus

Was RFVed before and passed, in error I would say. This is generally a nonsense word and we do not have three senses on the citations page that support any single given meaning. Equinox ◑ 02:32, 5 June 2016 (UTC)

There may be questions about what the word actually means, and how it is spelt, but my feeling is that the word is surely notable enough to include. It even has a Wikipedia entry. 86.171.174.114 02:56, 5 June 2016 (UTC)

I added some citations. Some of them are rather mention-y... Kiwima (talk) 21:06, 5 June 2016 (UTC)

• After reviewing the cites, I consider this RFV passed. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 22:37, 7 July 2016 (UTC)