Talk:three-forked

RFD discussion: March–April 2022

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three-forked

Blatant SOP Notusbutthem (talk) 20:08, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

Agreed. Delete. Overlordnat1 (talk) 22:33, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

Keep as a useful synonym. It’s not a SoP term coined yesterday, it’s an old word: keep it for the sake its usefulness. Further, it’s as SoP as threefold, hence keep. (Three keep votes— all should be counted. /s) ·~ dictátor·mundꟾ 17:47, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

Keep, because this isn’t three-forked. Theknightwho (talk) 19:07, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

Yet we define the term as “having three forks or prongs” [my emphasis by underlining]. This is a different sense of fork, currently numbered 4: “one of the parts into which anything is furcated or divided”. The term five-pointed is attestable;^[1][2][3] without prejudice on whether it is or is not includable, the argument that this isn’t five-pointed is not strong.  --Lambiam 15:42, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

Yes, it is a different sense of fork. The point is that it isn't clear which, and therefore it's less than the sum of its parts. I'm not sure what your argument is that it's not strong, though - that you personally find it obvious? Theknightwho (talk) 16:47, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

Has anyone ever used "forked" for anything other than referring to the number of forks something is divided into? It looks to me like it would be unclear only to people who think "colorless green ideas sleep furiously" is normal English. Chuck Entz (talk) 20:02, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

Forked definitely needs a second sense. The dividing/splitting sense comes from the past participle, whereas when it's used to mean "has [X many] forks" it's possessional. In other words, a two-forked road would mean it splits into two roads, but a twice-forked road would be one which forks in two places.

I suppose my question is: can every possessional adjective that comes from a countable noun (e.g. forked, pronged, armed etc.) be prefixed by a number? But even then, prefixing a number can only refer to one of the senses of forked, which still suggests not SoP. Theknightwho (talk) 13:44, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

Keep for reasons mentioned above. Additionally, since the term is also frequently spelled threeforked (and, in older works, threeforkt), we could probably use WT:COALMINE for this. Binarystep (talk) 12:10, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

Delete as SOP. —Svārtava (t/u) • 16:00, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

Keep - not SOP to me as my first thought was there would be six prongs (3 x 2) ... and I suppose 8 might be possible (2³). - Sonofcawdrey (talk) 06:37, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

I’ve changed my mind keep - if something bifurcates 3 times then it has 4 prongs/times/branches/tributaries, it’s not obvious that this actually refers to something trifurcated, in other words something that bifurcates twice at the same place and thus has three tines. To avoid being self-referential and ambiguous, the definition of three-forked should be rewritten to avoid mention of the word fork though. This would also make it clear that the word doesn’t have plausible but absurd meanings referring to plates with three forks on them, having three crotches or being kicked in the crotch three times (I must live a sheltered life as I’ve never come across these meanings of ‘fork’ until just now), a game of chess where pieces get forked three times, or a rather unlikely move where a knight is played onto a square where it forks three different pieces. Overlordnat1 (talk) 09:19, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

• RFD-kept. ·~ dictátor·mundꟾ 19:29, 25 April 2022 (UTC)