Talk:tennis player

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
Jump to navigation Jump to search

RFD[edit]

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.


soccer player, baseball player, basketball player, tennis player

SoP. If not, we would expect to have one of these entries for every sport, which is sheer insanity. P.S. I realise they may translate to single words in other languages, but that doesn't force the existence of English entries; the translations from those other languages need only be broken into multiple links. Equinox 22:46, 28 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Basketball player and tennis player have previously passed RFD, on the basis that in common use they refer specifically to a professional player of the sport. The same reasoning would presumably apply to soccer player and baseball player. I am slightly less convinced of this reasoning than I was the last time around, but still don't see any pressing need to delete; the set of entries to which this argument applies is quite small. -- Visviva 04:42, 1 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. As Visviva has noted, we've been through this discussion twice before (at least). Without new reasoning or a change in policy, there is no need to go through this discussion again. --EncycloPetey 16:30, 1 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per EP.—msh210 16:25, 2 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per EP. Perhaps we could file a copy of the last discussion on the talk pages of the three or four most common entries? -- ALGRIF talk 17:09, 2 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Please do (or preferably a link, to avoid partial duplication), or else this will come up again and again. I had no idea that a person who plays basketball non-professionally wouldn't count as a basketball player (and I think that's ridiculous and wrong, but I will yield to consensus). Equinox 00:22, 4 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep all. Master P plays basketball, but failed to become a basketball player. bd2412 T 20:17, 3 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

All kept. 63.95.64.254 03:01, 6 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

RFV[edit]

The following discussion has been moved from Wiktionary:Requests for verification.

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.


"A person who plays tennis, especially professionally." Talk:tennis player states that this was kept because tennis player implies a professional (though the definition doesn't reflect this, has the definition been changed?) Anyway, to the best of my knowledge tennis player does not imply a professional. It implies a player of tennis. Am seeking verification of that. Definition will be reworded to fit with RFD debate. Mglovesfun (talk) 22:49, 9 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Same or almost same wording is used in soccer player, baseball player, basketball player, ice hockey player, squash player, chess player and whatnot. If I recall right, the reasoning was that these may be professions and all professions should be included. The reasoning also served as justification for the current wording and, I think, to circumvent the obvious SOPism of defining a tennis player as one who plays tennis. BTW, for some reason we do not have golf player, although "professional golf player" gets more than 30,000 hits in a Google search. --Hekaheka (talk) 05:43, 10 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Doubtless, the term is attested in the sense "A person who plays tennis." If the "especially professionally" part of the definition does not get attested, a pro-keeping argument to be subsequently used in RFD is translation targets per Italian "tennista", Polish "tenisista", and Russian "теннисист", all single-word translations that are non-compounds. --Dan Polansky (talk) 08:19, 10 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
But all other-languages arguments are irrelevant, a point that is well-established. DCDuring TALK 22:49, 11 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Where is that point well established? --Dan Polansky (talk) 19:36, 12 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Keep all and reformat like one and a half into Category:English non-idiomatic translation targets. A great number of languages have "players" incorporated into the name of the game (if not a majority) but English words like footballer are less common. The template {{translation only}} will solve the problem with definitions. --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 01:15, 14 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I say keep as-is. Barack Obama plays basketball, but he isn't a basketball player; LeBron James is a basketball player, even though he might also have played a game of tennis or football at some point. The term passes the, well, "tennis player" test of WT:IDIOM. Most available citations are of the given definition, which adequately conveys the quasi-idiomatic nature of the term. - -sche (discuss) 07:54, 14 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. Barack Obama is a basketball player, it just isn't the first thing that comes to mind when you hear his name. LeBron James can be called a tennis or football player during any period of time during which he at least semi-regularly plays tennis or football. In any case, you can put any sport in front of the word player and get the same result so it is SOP with the relevant definition belonging on player. --WikiTiki89 08:22, 14 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, delete: of course Obama is a basketball player because he plays basketball. The phrase "keen basketball player" (always an amateur) makes this clear. Equinox 09:54, 15 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Since this has turned into an RFD discussion, (and I would claim "clear widespread use" as far as RFV is concerned, I suggest moving to RFD. - -sche (discuss) 20:42, 14 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I noticed (belatedly) that the term in its first sense (professional) had already passed RFD and was kept. The word "especially" implies that non-professional tennis players can also be called that. No need to create an additional sense for non-professionals. The entry should be detagged and left alone. --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 21:49, 14 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I have removed the {{rfv}} tag, because the term is clearly attested, and the discussion above should be taking place on WT:RFD. Feel free to tag the entry {{rfd}} and move this discussion to WT:RFD. - -sche (discuss) 00:18, 18 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]


RFD 2[edit]

The following information has failed Wiktionary's deletion process.

It should not be re-entered without careful consideration.


Fails the tennis player test. Tennis player means a player of tennis, either professionally or not professionally. The 'professional' bit has to be worked out from the context, i.e. by reading the whole passage or document and not just the words 'tennis' and 'player'. Renard Migrant (talk) 16:11, 2 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

What happened to the fried egg test?
Keep as an important sporting term, and as a translations target. It's not in the same league as a tiddlywinks player. Donnanz (talk) 16:26, 2 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
What is the difference between the two? Seem the same to me. - TheDaveRoss 16:32, 2 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
He's saying it's culturally different (but not lexically different). Renard Migrant (talk) 14:48, 3 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • X-player terms have previously been kept on the grounds that a non-professional X player isn't an X player, which I have refuted more than once. (After all, one can talk about a "keen tennis player", "amateur basketball player", etc. which are clearly not professionals.) So I'll just raise that point again and repeat my delete. Equinox 17:56, 2 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Well consensus can change: for one, accordion player has failed since 2012. 2012 was RFV not RFD so in fact 2009 was its last RFD, aroud 7 years ago. That's a lot. For an organization to have changed its views in 7 years is not very surprising. Renard Migrant (talk) 19:25, 2 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete A look at Google books shows that actually, "tennis player" implying professionalism is far from universal. Of the hits for "is a tennis player" where I can see the context clearly, the following are about adults who are amateur tennis players:
The following is about a professional tennis player:
And these are about students who play tennis:
It does in fact seem to be someone who plays tennis in any capacity, not just professional. Smurrayinchester (talk) 18:13, 2 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. The claim that a basketball player is necessarily one who plays professionally is at best a no true Scotsman fallacy and at worst an outright lie. — Ungoliant (falai) 18:25, 2 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Make it a translation target or delete it, either way overturning the "tennis player test". I don't mind keeping it as a translation target, I just want us to recognize that it's not idiomatic. google books:"tennis player" "robot" shows that even defining this as "a person who plays tennis" is wrong!
  • 1991 April 30, Weekly World News, volume 12, number 30, page 43:
    "Gala is five times stronger than your average male tennis player and never gets tired because she is a machine. Her Japanese researcher has robot tennis player that and plays rings around [humans...]
  • 2015, Felice Arena, Tennis: Sporty Kids →ISBN:
    The Rally Robot was a super tennis player.
etc
At Wiktionary:Tea room/2016/February#woodwind_player, it's just recently been opined and I agree that "woodwind player" is SOP and shouldn't have an entry. In that case, we have woodwindist, an idiomatic term, to host translations. Perhaps woodwind player should still exist as a hard- or soft-redirect to woodwindist so that those translations are more easily findable, but woodwind player shouldn't have a full entry with a definition (IMO), and neither should this. - -sche (discuss) 19:34, 2 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Who on earth would want to put a translation under woodwindist? Not me. Donnanz (talk) 19:49, 2 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I come back to the same question I've asked at least twice before. Is it really all about you, Donnanz? Renard Migrant (talk) 21:51, 2 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Let's not personalize the debate like that. I see the point that "woodwindist" is a very uncommon term, perhaps not one where people would think to look for translations. The question, I suppose, is whether people (who are presumably vaguely aware that we don't include entirely unidiomatic strings like "the shirt is blue", and hence who don't expect us to have translations of "the shirt is blue") would expect us to have translations of "woodwind player". If they would, then we should have a redirect of some sort to woodwindist (or, some might argue, an entry) at "woodwind player". (My main concern is that we recognize these things as unidiomatic translation targets, rather than pretending they're something idiomatic, something more than just "tennis" or "woodwind" + "player".) - -sche (discuss) 22:13, 2 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
That's a much more constructive comment. RM needs to be reminded that users cannot be forced, and they can vote with their feet. Donnanz (talk) 22:35, 2 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I'll make the general point then. User should put the good of the project ahead of their own personal preferences. Renard Migrant (talk) 22:41, 2 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The "good of the project" is not being served by RFDs like this. Donnanz (talk) 22:46, 2 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know about overturning it - it's a perfectly good rule (it protects entries like eye doctor and interior designer), it just doesn't apply in the eponymous case. Perhaps it should be renamed the border guard rule or truck driver rule. Smurrayinchester (talk) 16:08, 4 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per SMurray's facts, which would seem to trump the other contributions to this discussion. DCDuring TALK 20:47, 2 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. Deletionism is rising again… Job titles for athletes in English are well fixed. No child says “I wanna be a player!” when he/she wants to be a tennis player. If tennis player was an arbitrary combination, you could say player of tennis interchangeably, but at least in modern English everyone says tennis player when referring to a professional tennis player. The cover term of tennis player, baseball player, etc. is rather athlete, not player. — TAKASUGI Shinji (talk) 23:30, 2 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
People also say "my child" far more often than "child of mine," that doesn't mean that "my child" is idiomatic. People say "cook" when referring to professional cooks, yet cook doesn't apply exclusively to professional cooks. - TheDaveRoss 00:13, 3 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. Where else would we put the translations? Benwing2 (talk) 01:16, 3 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
BTW, in regard to "robot tennis player", this is the same issue of prototypicality as with "glass bird". Our defn of bird says it's an animal with wings and feathers that usually flies; glass birds are none of these (unless you throw them at someone?) but that doesn't make the defn wrong. Benwing2 (talk) 01:19, 3 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
We've been there. The entry was kept. Keep keeping. --Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 01:31, 3 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. Let's try to imagine how this would look in a printed dictionary:
Basketball: a game played by two teams of five players, in which the object is to maneuver a ball, called a "basketball", into the other team's goal, known as a basket.
Basketball player: one who plays basketball.
Chess: a strategy game for two players using a board with sixty-four squares and two sets of sixteen pieces of varying rank and function.
Chess player: one who plays chess.
Tennis: (orig. lawn tennis) a racquet game usually played by two players stationed on opposite sides of a tennis court, with a low net stretched between them.
Tennis player: one who plays tennis.
Just how many examples should I list? I could release quite a volley: baseball, football, soccer, quidditch, hockey, darts, table tennis, croquet, badminton, volleyball, checkers, Monopoly, backgammon, lacrosse, horseshoes, polo, water polo, Marco Polo, one old cat, two old cat, rounders, court tennis, jai alai, poker, blackjack, gin rummy, jacks, tiddlywinks, marbles, pool, snooker... and many others. Who is served by these obvious definitions? I don't mean to fault anyone's intentions, but the mere fact that we often have impressions of some of the persons described by a phrase (such as some of them being "professionals") doesn't seem to point to any pressing need. Such a set of definitions doesn't appear to match what other dictionaries have done; is there an urgent reason for Wiktionary to break new ground? Is there really some advantage to having "tennis player" primarily for non-English speakers who cannot not intuit the meaning of tennis + player? I can't force anyone to agree with me on whether such phrases should be left in or taken out; if people aren't willing to change their minds, resolving this will be a deuce of a challenge. All I can say to them is that the ball is in their court. P Aculeius (talk) 13:30, 3 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
If you want examples from another online dictionary, which leaves Wiktionary in the shade - [1] (several pages). Some terms such as football player have an equivalent (footballer), but this doesn't apply in every case, including tennis player. Donnanz (talk) 20:14, 3 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
That's not a dictionary, it's a wordbook. Its sole purpose is to provide translations from English into German, so of course it includes all kinds of examples we don't have or need. Or are you suggesting that we should add English entries for every word or phrase that exists in German? If so, then we need to add accordion player, attacking player, bagpipe player, bass player, billiards player, blues player, Bosman player (as well as Bosman), bowls player, brass player, bridge player, card player, cautious player, cithara player, clarinet player, clavichord player, clean player, club player, concertina player, conservative player, contract player, cricket player, cymbal player, daring player, defensive player, doubles player, experienced player, fellow player, fistball player, flute player, former player, global player, golf player, guitar player, gusle player, harmonica player, harp player, harpsichord player, homegrown player, individual player, intermediate player, key player, keyboard player, lottery player, lute player, mandolin player, market player, midfield player, oboe player, offensive player, opposing player, organ player, outfield player, radball player, reckless player, recorder player, reed player, regular player, rugby player, sitar player, skat player, skittles player, squash player, string player, tambourine player, top player, tournament player, trombone player, trumpet player, tuba player, viol player, viola player, violin player, visiting player, weak player, wind player, woodwind player, young player, youth player, zither player, beach volleyball player, blues piano player, cycle polo player, cycle-ball player, double bass player, English horn player, exceptionally skilled player, fellow skat player, frame drum player, French harp player, French horn player, ice hockey player, international football player, left-footed player, locally trained player, and visually handicapped player, as well as all of the above, and many others, such as Scrabble player, four-square player, kickball player, Calvinball player, wiffleball player, eight-ball player, nine-ball player, ninepins player, tenpins player, duckpins player, rubber-band-duckpins player, ping-pong player, Twister player, Hungry Hungry Hippos player, Operation! player, mumblety peg player, hide-and-seek player, I spy player, bingo player, pinball player, air hockey player, air guitar player, blind man's bluff player, canasta player, cribbage player, Dungeons & Dragons player, duck duck goose player, hot potato player, musical chairs player, king-of-the-hill player, keep away player, kick the can player, monkey in the middle player, Mikado player, mahjong player, dominoes player, dice player, craps player, baccarat player, roulette player, leapfrog player, pattycake player, peekaboo player, pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey player, Poohsticks player, Pick-up sticks player, Russian roulette player, rock-paper-scissors player, seven-up player, hearts player, spades player, crazy eights player, snap player, old maid player, authors player, spin-the-bottle player, tag player, truth-or-dare player, Yahtzee player, trick player, practical joke player, serpent player, sackbut player, sousaphone player, cornet player, contrabass player, soprano saxophone player, alto saxophone player, tenor saxophone player, and many, many, many more. Can you give me one good reason why readers would benefit from these entries? What is it about them that isn't discernible, even by speakers of foreign languages, from the separate and constituent parts of each phrase? P Aculeius (talk) 22:57, 3 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
You wasted all that space in asking a silly question? The answer is, of course, NO. Donnanz (talk) 00:28, 4 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
You don't like the question? That's too bad. Nobody made you waste your time reading it. In answer to your query, "did I waste all that space asking a silly question?" the answer is, of course, NO. I wasted all that space replying to a silly suggestion that the challenged entry was justified by its occurrence in a wordbook together with pages and pages of similar entries. P Aculeius (talk) 04:12, 4 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I have noticed that you tend to waste a lot of space wherever you leave your four tildes, not just here. Every entry should be judged on its merits, and I have spent some time deliberating on whether to make an entry, e.g. woodwind player - fortunately I don't create many in English - someone thought this entry is worthwhile and I agree. If it is deleted many translations, quite a few of which are not compound words, will be orphaned as a monument to stupidity. Perhaps you would like to vent your spleen on clarinet-player instead (current RFV). It was entered by the same user who nominated accordion player for deletion, so a double standard was employed. Donnanz (talk) 10:36, 4 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Well, bully for you! I'm glad somebody on Wiktionary makes it his personal mission to ensure that nobody wastes too much space. As we know, space is in very short supply on Wiktionary. Each unnecessary jot and tittle uses thousands of photons on each computer screen, and our world has much more need of them for combating hunger and disease! You too can contribute by not attempting to refute other people's arguments with murky reasoning that we should keep "tennis player" as an entry, because a German user would be confused by the notion that tennisspieler merely equals tennis + spieler! If it was not your intention to suggest that all of the above list be turned into entries because they might be compounded into single words in German or other languages, then why exactly did you make the point of how many similar words there were? Perhaps your aggression toward others ("you wasted all that space in asking a silly question? ...NO. ...you tend to waste a lot of spaces wherever you leave your four tildes. Perhaps you would like to vent your spleen...") is a sign of misdirected anger toward your own inability to present a cogent argument based on your opinions. If you think a particular entry is useful and ought to be kept, fine, say so, state your chief reason, and let others present their opinions without the need to imply that their reasoning must be faulty because you can find distantly-related examples that even you don't consider relevant to the discussion. And when such arguments are effectively rebutted by showing what kind of strange results would come of following your reasoning to its logical end, I suggest you give up, rather than attacking what you consider to be the personal faults of the contributor ("your posts use too many Kilobytes! You're killing too many e-trees! You're wrong because you're an angry person!"). I'm sure your talents could be put to better use. P Aculeius (talk) 13:55, 4 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I had to plough through all that lot of nothingness to get to the bottom line. Yes, you're right in one respect, I have better things to do than argue the toss. I have made my point. Donnanz (talk) 16:27, 4 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Donnanz you've failed to explain which of those terms should be created and which shouldn't. You say 'of course, NO' and I assumed you'd've have said 'of course, YES'. What criterion are you using to separate these into two groups, then. Renard Migrant (talk) 18:29, 4 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Also I don't think you have made your point, unless your personal attack on P Aculeius was your point. Renard Migrant (talk) 18:30, 4 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I have reread what I have written, and I can't find one word which constitutes a personal attack. Yes, I have given criticism, but we all have to take that whether we like it or not, and I seem to get plenty. Donnanz (talk) 20:12, 4 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
dict.cc is a bad "lemming" (in the sense of the "lemming test" some people use), because it functions (as noted above) as a phrasebook, and even includes things like "A car drove past the house. = Ein Wagen fuhr am Haus vorbei.", which I hope no-one wants us to include. - -sche (discuss) 22:21, 4 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
If you don't like it you can edit it, unregistered users can do that just like here. Donnanz (talk) 00:03, 5 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Do you hear yourself? You can't expect us to have to edit every other editable online dictionary to justify making a change here. --WikiTiki89 01:12, 5 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
My point is that dict.cc's CFI are fundamentally different from Wiktionary's, because dict.cc routinely includes unidiomatic things up to and including entire long sentences, whereas we don't. Hence, the inclusion or non-inclusion of "tennis player" in dict.cc, which you cite, is not relevant to us. - -sche (discuss) 02:11, 5 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I thought you meant the translation was wrong. But I have seen example sentences including translations within entries, which is not such a bad idea. Donnanz (talk) 10:16, 5 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per everyone else who voted delete above. --WikiTiki89 23:58, 3 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. I'm fairly certain that this is covered by a meaning of player (one needs to be added as a subsense of "one who plays"), and is entirely SOP. It could be applied to any sport, board game, video game, etc. The fact that it's a profession doesn't seem like a good argument for keeping it. By that logic, we'd also have vacuum cleaner salesman among a host of others. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 23:59, 3 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Keep as a translation target. Do the supporters of deletion really think that we should omit translations from SoP English terms in cases where many other languages use a single-word term for the concept in question? This, that and the other (talk) 10:28, 4 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
YES WE DO. We've heard that argument 99 times before too. Agglutinative languages often have single words for extraordinarily complex concepts (that-he-was-about-to-pick-up-the-newspaper), or things unknown to Anglophone culture (do we need an English entry for e.g. Maori digging-stick since that's one word in Maori)? Equinox 13:04, 4 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, obviously. Why else would we be voting to delete? Renard Migrant (talk) 18:29, 4 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Do we need entries for fellow student (Mitstudent) and female fellow student (Mitstudentin) and third-party motor vehicle insurance (Kraftfahrzeughaftpflichtversicherung)? Each German word, and each English phrase, is attested. - -sche (discuss) 22:37, 4 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
That's the perennial problem that we're up against all the time with compound words as used in German and other languages, and it certainly applies to this RFD. Donnanz (talk) 13:38, 5 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Well, we clearly need to draw the line somewhere between "water" and "that-he-was-about-to-pick-up-the-newspaper", and it looks like I see this term falling on the "water" side of the line (mainly because it's a reasonably simple, common term that could plausibly be found in the English-to-X part of many paper bilingual dictionaries), while many others see it on the "that-he-was-about-to-pick-up-the-newspaper" side. In my view, deleting entries like this makes Wiktionary worse for our readers. This, that and the other (talk) 23:25, 5 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. Matthias Buchmeier (talk) 12:58, 4 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. - TheDaveRoss 13:09, 4 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I voted Delete in the last 25 discussions about this, and I still vote the same. There has not been a single convincing argument to keep it. --Ce mot-ci (talk) 15:41, 4 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

:Delete DCDuring TALK 22:07, 4 February 2016 (UTC) [duplicate][reply]

Aculeius, you are absolutely right. I do that all the time, see e.g. my recent entries for tennispelaaja (tennis player), osa-aikaeläke (part-time pension). Finnish, like German, uses a lot of closed compounds, many of which are esentially SOP, and I believe it would be nonsense to have an English entry for each of them. --Hekaheka (talk) 06:50, 8 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
And it wouldn't simply be easier to include translations under the Czech entry in English Wiktionary, as well as under the German, and the Catalan, and the Polish, than it would be to have an entry in English as the hub, linking to translations in every language. Is that the argument? That does make some sense, but it would seem to be an argument for having an English entry for every phrase that is regularly expressed as a single word in any other language, even if it never is in English. Is there any logical or objective criterion for limiting the scope of such a policy? The number of such entries could easily stretch into the tens of thousands. I'm not sure that people could be counted on to agree to include only words or phrases of a certain commonness, much less on what meets the definition; if tennista produces a list of equivalents in other language, why not tiddlywinkarista (assuming the term exists)? P Aculeius (talk) 17:42, 6 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
There is an entry on the German site for Tennisspieler [3]. Say no more. Donnanz (talk) 14:42, 6 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]