Talk:private joke

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Strangely, this entry is in French, not English. On Wiktionnaire, it is in English, not French. I've been bamboozled, nevertheless. --Volants 11:47, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

I've added an English entry for the term.

I don't know about French. --Dan Polansky 13:57, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes, it's used in French (gender: feminine or masculine) Lmaltier 14:08, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Do FL items not need to be attested? DCDuring TALK 15:42, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

• Clocked out DCDuring TALK 15:48, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Trans-Atlantique est donc un immense private joke à l'échelle de toute une nation. (Wladimir Krysinski, Carrefours de signes, 1981) But it's very easy to find other examples, you only have to look for them. Lmaltier 21:34, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't have to look for them, nor anyone else, especially no one who finds the entry not worth the minutes it would take. DCDuring TALK 22:08, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Cited. It was harder than Lmaltier had implied — in edited works, this expression is usually italicized as a loanword, which while not fatal, is obviously not desirable — but I did find more than three edited works that use italics in general, but do not see fit to italicize this phrase. —Ruakh_TALK 12:43, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

RFV passed, since no one has objected. —Ruakh_TALK 20:49, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

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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What definition of idiom does this fit in? Or is it just voting? DCDuring TALK 15:45, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Well, if this is "sum of parts", then we will need another sense under private to cover situations where information/interpretation is known to a select few. I'd think it ought to be kept on the basis of being a synonym for in-joke, which is an entry, and because a person can "laugh at his own private joke", which doesn't fit the usual definitions for joke. --EncycloPetey 16:54, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Keep per EncycloPetey's reasoning.--Dmol 23:29, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Five senses added to the three previously at private; some rewording. Boy, are we ever behind the curve on basic definitions. DCDuring TALK 00:16, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Keep, it's not a joke that's private, so how can it be sum of parts? Mglovesfun (talk) 13:21, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

But that's exactly what it is.

Both (deprecated template usage) joke and (deprecated template usage) private have multiple meanings and a hearer or reader finds the meanings of each that are mutually compatible and befit the context, using an associative-type meat computer. In contrast, it would typically be faster for a dumb silicon-type machine to have an enormous look-up table. If you are serving the needs of silicon machines and the meat-machine imitators of silicon, then you should definitely have such entries. If, in contrast, we are oriented toward the needs of meat machines (and silicon-based imitators of meat machines), we ought not to encourage such things. DCDuring TALK 15:35, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't think any of our senses at private cover this. "Intended only for the use of an individual, group, or organization." comes closest, but is not accurate enough. BTW I think we now have some redundant sense, like the US medical one, which seems to be covered by this sense. Mglovesfun (talk) 16:15, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

I find more than one of the senses adequate for the job, because my portable meat-type computer doesn't require or expect mechanical precision from a dictionary and certainly not from this one. Feel free to improve, merge, remove, or challenge any of the definitions; my feelings won't be hurt. DCDuring TALK 17:26, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

The primary definition of private uses accessible, one of the definitions of which is "easily understood." Thus a private joke would be one that is easily understood only by a select few. SoP. Pingku 14:47, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

Delete per DCDuring's analysis.​—msh210℠ 17:33, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

I am not sure whether it counts but I can't normally say in Czech the word-for-word translation "soukromý vtip", although the term has some Google hits. So the phrase "private joke" seems peculiar to English. "peculiar to English" is that sense of "idiomatic" that CFI does not use, but maybe it should. --Dan Polansky 13:05, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

• I think the correct term for this is inside joke. 71.66.97.228 06:09, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

  Surely all three are correct? You've picked the only one I've never heard of. Mglovesfun (talk) 23:18, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Keep, definitely. Explain slight differences in meaning and UK/US usage between "private/in/inside joke" and add compound nouns to private, in, and inside. See: http://www.ldoceonline.com/dictionary/joke_1 http://education.yahoo.com/reference/dictionary/entry/in-joke http://education.yahoo.com/reference/dictionary/entry/private http://education.yahoo.com/reference/dictionary/entry/inside --Espoo 08:04, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
Kept per consensus. Mglovesfun (talk) 22:33, 24 May 2010 (UTC)