Wiktionary talk:Idioms that survived RFD

Wow. Where did we get this from? Neat. --Connel MacKenzie 18:49, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

"Scream like rain man" is not attested

And I mean not attested. Zero Google books, zero Google groups, zero Google blogs, 3 web hits, all from us.

Do we take it out, or change the category to "not idiomatic or not attested" and note it? -dmh 16:36, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

We can take it out. I had intended to go through the history and pick out more examples, but never got around to it. DAVilla 19:14, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Huh

This is great, but I'm having a hard time figuring out the intended scope of many of these tests, or how to determine when or if they have been applied. In particular, it's hard to grasp the intended distinction between the "fried egg," "prior knowledge," and "Egyptian pyramid" tests -- especially since in the case of Talk:fried egg it appears that the Egyptian pyramid test was what actually carried the day (the multiplicity of possible interpretations), and only minimal reference was made to the fried/scrambled distinction. -- Visviva 02:39, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

That's a good point. I overlooked the idea that "cooked by frying" could itself be restricted in a way, the meaning further subdivided, when I had meant that a distinct sense of the term was needed. Let me fill this page out a little more and I'll look into rewording Egyptian pyramid. DAVilla 07:40, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

From main page

I moved this here, as I don't see what relevance it has. See for yourselves. Mglovesfun (talk) 10:26, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Never mind test

Terms that are used to structure conversation.

(No terms have passed under this test.)

Easier said test

Terms whose final constituents are omitted, implying conventional knowledge.

(No terms have passed under this test.)

"Mind was crossed" test

Terms that cannot be rewritten in certain grammatical frames.

(No terms have passed under this test.)

Titular tests

Why are some tests not included in their sections? "in between", "rocking chair" and "once upon a time" are not included in those sections. - -sche 03:21, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Because the terms were never proposed for deletion. I have linked the titles. - -sche 06:11, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Regional idioms as naming examples

AFAICT fancy dress is not used much in the US in the idiomatic sense. As such it seems like a poor choice as the name for the idiomaticity test it is used to name here. It is confusing as its use could be interpreted as referring to the notion of idiomaticity involved in "we call it an X (telephone booth), but in the UK they call it a Y (telephone box)". DCDuring TALK 14:38, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

The "fancy dress test" has been cited to defend have a bath, have a wank, ground beef and pull the fire alarm. (One should add some of these to the list.) I support changing the name, perhaps to "in office", "in hospital" or "have a bath", if we note that "this test was formerly called the fancy dress test". - -sche 18:36, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Another idiom like "in hospital" is "at table", which I created today. - -sche (discuss) 07:09, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

Unidentified

Are there any reason these particular ones are here? See Category:RFD result (passed). There are hundreds to choose from. --Mglovesfun (talk) 07:29, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

know someone in the biblical sense

@Smurrayinchester re diff: I don't see any comments in Talk:know someone in the biblical sense that mention the "jiffy" test, nor do I think the test applies, since the Bible (obviously, as a logical pre-requisite) must have established and familiarized English speakers with bare "know" in the relevant sense before they could develop the longer phrase "know someone in the biblical sense". Davilla's comment could be taken to imply he thought the phrase "know someone in the biblical sense" predated "in the biblical sense", but that doesn't seem to have been the reason a majority of "keep" voters, or even anyone other than Davilla himself, voted to keep the longer phrase. - -sche (discuss) 15:49, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

The RfD (when the argument shifted to "it's know + in the biblical sense") was before the jiffy test came about, but it's the same criterion that Ruakh ("the know-less use of in the biblical sense [...] suggests to me that this phrase has taken on a life of its own."), DCDuring ("This seems to be one of the rare cases where we can find an appropriate lexical entry (in the biblical sense) to cover the construction generalizing from a core idiom (the know form).") and DAVilla ("This is part of the etymology of in the biblical sense") seem to have been using when they voted keep - namely, that in the biblical sense was derived from know in the biblical sense. Smurrayinchester (talk) 19:01, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

(Though feel free to remove it if I've misunderstood - I just thought it looked weird having only a single example.) Smurrayinchester (talk) 20:19, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

similes

I noticed that hot as hell survived RFD. John Cross (talk) 16:49, 23 September 2017 (UTC)

'Jiffy'-like 'aliquot' test for senses

On Talk:aliquot and then Talk:topiary, there is some support for the idea that if a term was an adjective before it was a noun, it should perhaps be considered to be an adjective even if all uses of it could now be analysed as attributive uses of the noun. (This has also been referenced on Talk:twin- concerning the POS of "twin".) - -sche (discuss) 22:20, 4 March 2018 (UTC)