Talk:run of luck

RFD discussion: November 2022–January 2024

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run of luck

SOP. Not in lemmings; dictionary.com has an entry sourced from "THE AMERICAN HERITAGE® IDIOMS DICTIONARY". This, that and the other (talk) 00:27, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

Leaning keep. It's not transparently SOP: per the OED, at least, run of luck is specifically a series of gambling wins, the more generic use to mean any spell of good fortune (not listed at our entry) is a later transferred sense. There, it has a sub-entry as a noun phrase under luck (alongside stuff like devil's luck—mere collocations are shunted to their own separate list). We also have the very similar lucky streak. There's another more general historical aspect, since etymologically it appears that the sense of run as a series or a spell might have been generalised from its use in gambling: "run of fortune" is attested from the late 17th century, whereas the more general concept in reference to events is 18th-century. Compare etymonline. —Al-Muqanna المقنع (talk) 01:01, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

• Delete, SOP. The collocation is not reserved to gambling contexts.^[1][2][3] One can also use the synonyms streak of luck^[4][5][6], run of fortune,^{[7][8](déjà vu)[9]} and, to complete the list, streak of fortune.^[10][11][12] Furthermore, the luck can be qualified, as in run of good luck or even of bad luck.^[13][14][15] I see no reason to think that the use of run in the sense of “series of like items” originated in gambling.  --Lambiam 12:28, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

@Lambian: Just to note, my argument above was a historical one—it is obviously used outside of gambling contexts, but this now-SOP use is transferred and not the original sense according to the OED. The "series of like items" sense of run is also listed as a subsense after "spell of luck" (similar earlier attestation is to continuous and abstract referents like "the run of time" and not a discrete series). The OED is only one source, but it seems reasonable enough and I'd want another citation to feel comfortable rejecting it out of hand. —Al-Muqanna المقنع (talk) 12:47, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

I do not have access to the current edition of the OED, but the 1933 edition of the OED defines a sense of run as: “A course or spell of (good or ill) fortune, esp. in games of chance.”^[16] The first three supporting citations, which are ordered by date, are:

• 1697 John Vanbrugh Aesop: “forced to cut down his Timber, which he would willingly preserve against an ill run at dice”.
• 1759 Laurence Sterne Tristram Shandy: “as the dice took a run against him”.
• 1782 Frances Burney Cecilia: “had had the preceding night an uncommon run of luck”.

The rest contains, in order, the collocations “a good or bad run of luck at cards”, “a long run of evil fortune”, and “a run of ill-luck”. With the 1933 OED definition, “run of luck” is definitely SOP. In my opinion, this sense is actually merely a specialization of a sense defined by the 1933 OED as: “A continued spell or course of some condition or state of things”. The aspect of fortune and the role of games of chance, if applicable, are conferred by the context in each of these quotations.  --Lambiam 22:12, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

The current edition is rather more detailed, yeah, but the 1933 would then seem to in fact support that it originated in gambling, no? All of those early uses relate to gambling. —Al-Muqanna المقنع (talk) 23:23, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

Actually, the full passage containing the third quotation is interesting and seems to support the contention that "run of luck" in fact originated as a term specifically related to gambling: [17]. Note that it's introduced without prior context—the reader is expected to infer that it refers to gambling and not just any old luck—and also that it's italicised in a way suggesting that it's a term of art. —Al-Muqanna المقنع (talk) 23:39, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

These six quotations are uses of the term run. Obviously, they have been selected by Murray to support his definition, involving fortune – and a good source of discussions of fortune is provided by games of chance. So what we have here is a selection effect. Only two contain the specific collocation run of luck. We see either stand-alone uses of run or in various transparent combinations: with at dice, of luck, of evil fortune, and of ill-luck. As I said, IMO these are SOP uses of run in a more general sense. This sense of run is old enough. For example, a book from 1677 has “a run of 20 Years”,[18] viz. of the Ark residing in the house of Abinadab. Why shouldn’t one expect to see it applied to other spells or courses of something, including good or bad luck (in gambling)? The collocation “a constant run of Fortune” occurs in a book from 1694,^[19] unrelated to games of chance. Is there a reason to think this is by extension of a sense originating in gambling, instead of simply being the more general sense?  --Lambiam 18:21, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

• Delete, and taken some quotes for run P. Sovjunk (talk) 00:26, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
• Delete. Ultimateria (talk) 21:30, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
• Delete, one should not even essentialize it, to deter ludomaniacs. Fay Freak (talk) 11:47, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

• Kept per consensus Fond of sanddunes (talk) 19:47, 2 January 2024 (UTC)
  • [Reopening] @Fond of sanddunes Wait, what? I count one keep and five deletes. — excarnateSojourner (ta·co) 20:02, 2 January 2024 (UTC)
    • Ah right. I meant Failed per consensus, clearly. Fond of sanddunes (talk) 20:16, 2 January 2024 (UTC)
      • Ok. We still need an admin to delete it. — excarnateSojourner (ta·co) 01:37, 3 January 2024 (UTC)