Talk: Figure of speech

Stone knives and bearskins

I removed the following text:

Some fans use this term to refer to situations in which much is expected from little.

Ummm... do we really care what some fans do? -- Renegade54 17:29, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Burning the midnight oil

This seems to just be a dictionary definition, defining it and noting two instances where the phrase was used. We have also deleted at least one article on a phrase before, "To hell with it" --31dot 03:19, November 23, 2010 (UTC)

Mentions of oil should be at its article or Petroleum, and the All Good Things reference is there already.--31dot 03:28, November 23, 2010 (UTC)

But it is not oil, it is an idiom!! It was also used in "First Flight". Anyway, regardless, how can you say we are striving to be as comprehensive of a reference as possible and then suggest we dont catalog something because it was only mentioned in two instances. So what? We have hundreds of pages here referencing something that was only used or shown or mentioned once and there is always overlap. Maybe someone will actually want to do a search on the expression to find out in what episode Data said it, cause they considered it funny etc. Fact is, it is an expression used in canon with sufficient context to warrant an entry. The fact that something was mentioned in the episode doesnt mean we cant have separate entries for it. – Distantlycharmed 03:40, November 23, 2010 (UTC)

I don't think we are here to list instances of phrases. As said on the "To hell with it" deletion page, we are not a book of phrases. Do you really think we need an article on every phrase? And if so, how can we then continue to say we are not a dictionary?--31dot 03:52, November 23, 2010 (UTC)

It is an idiom, not a random phrase. "To hell with it" is a random phrase. Anyway, to hell with it...– Distantlycharmed 04:01, November 23, 2010 (UTC)

Hmm, this one I'm going to go with saying we don't need to keep, because its use as an idiom in Star Trek is not somehow unique. That's not to say that idioms don't belong, per say, especially if the idiom is unique to Trek or its specific use is unique. Yes, this is somewhat of a subjective judgment call, and in this case I'm saying this one isn't unique enough. --OuroborosCobra ^talk 04:33, November 23, 2010 (UTC)

At the very least, perhaps it should be moved to some sort of larger pages that discusses idiom (I think there's something like that for insults or whatever), instead of having individual pages. I guess though, either or option doesn't really matter to me (as I kind of agree with what's being said on not needing it). On a more personal note (and somewhat off topic), I had to switch to Monobook just to figure out on how to add to this frickin' discussion. --Terran Officer 05:46, November 23, 2010 (UTC)

Deletion

Rationale

Per the talk page, we are not about documenting the use of idioms, unless they are specific to Star Trek. The references on the page could be placed at Oil or Petroleum, and one reference is there already.--31dot 11:14, November 23, 2010 (UTC)

Discussion

• Placement on petroleum would be debatable exactly because it is an idiomatic expression, one where the meaning of the phrase is not made up from the individual meanings of its constituents. The meaning of the phrase is detached from what exactly "oil" means. In any case, though, idioms are part of a language just as much as any other "random phrase" (as it has been put on the talk page) which might need to be explained to an uninformed listener to that language. Explaining idioms that are part of nowadays english language is outside of the scope of this wiki. Delete. -- Cid Highwind 13:51, November 23, 2010 (UTC)
• What Cid said. Delete. -- Renegade54 15:50, November 23, 2010 (UTC)
• Placement to petroleum or oil would not just be debatable but flat out wrong. Burning the midnight oil has nothing to do, as Cid pointed out, with petroleum products and it is not its defining feature. The episodes where this appears all have the "burning the midnight oil" part red-linked by the way. If we dont want idioms referenced then why have them red-linked as if these were needed articles? – Distantlycharmed 18:44, November 23, 2010 (UTC)

I could red link "two plus two equals four" but that in and of itself does not mean it needs an article.--31dot 02:26, November 24, 2010 (UTC)

If I make a red-link for it, can we bring back the redirect for Worf, son of Mogh, of the Klingon House of Martok, of the Human family Rozhenko, mate to K'Ehleyr, father to Alexander Rozhenko, and husband to Jadzia Dax, Starfleet officer and soldier of the Empire, bane of the House of Duras and slayer of Gowron? Pretty please? I'll give you all chocolates... --OuroborosCobra ^talk 02:45, November 24, 2010 (UTC)

Well my bad. I thought the whole point of red-linking was to indicate that an article is needed - not taking into account vandalism or obvious nonsensical stuff. With regards to this particular expression: I saw the "red-link" in at least two of the articles it is referencing so I didn't think it was an accident. – Distantlycharmed 02:56, November 24, 2010 (UTC)

You aren't wrong to think that, not wrong at all. In general a red-link does mean just that. Normally a red-link is something we want to make into an article. One thing to keep in mind is that, as with everything on this site, anyone can create a red-link. That means that even if normally they mean "we want something here," sometimes they just mean "some anon added this without thinking." No harm done, DC. --OuroborosCobra ^talk 03:00, November 24, 2010 (UTC)

I'd recommend the possibility of rolling things like this into a bigger topic like idiom or idiom as a subset of language -- certainly it'd be interesting to see a compendium of idioms as addressed in Star Trek, and an opportunity to examine alien idiom and language that was devised solely for the canon of the series. This article does not stand alone as deserving to be a separate article, but the source could be listed there. Rename, broaden topic and expand. -- Captain MKB 03:12, November 24, 2010 (UTC)

I'd go for Captainmike's suggestion, I seem to recall similar pages being for insults or something along that line (it escapes me at the moment, though). --Terran Officer 03:26, November 24, 2010 (UTC)

While we should have a page about Star Trek-specific idioms(if they aren't discussed already) I'm not keen on a general idiom page as it would do nothing except define them- and we are not a dictionary. It might be fine if limited to those phrases specifically called idioms in canon, though I think this "midnight oil" reference is the only example of that. In general, however, it is not our job to point out specific ways the English language was used, as Cid said.--31dot 11:39, November 24, 2010 (UTC)

My vote is for move it into Idiom - given that idiom is a canon concept it deserves a page anyhow, and not only would mentioning "burning the midnight oil" as an example on that page be very natural, it would also make that page feel like the description of a concept rather then the definition of a word. As for the question if other idioms, not specificaly refered to as such, belong on that page, that's a different discussion, and one that should not cloud this page. But for the record, there's a very similar page, Proverb, which includes proverbs that aren't refered to as such, and doesn't seem to suffer from it. Lastly, I think the page with insults people seem to remember is either slang or Category:Slang. Note that some slang terms are just listed on the slang page, while others get their own articles. Not much consistency there... And many pages in the slang category pretty much already are dictionary definitions. (BYOB, Earther). Also I don't think Burning the midnight oil is particulary worse then Stone knives and bearskins or Needle in a haystack. -- Capricorn 06:49, November 27, 2010 (UTC)

• The whole idiom page thing sounds like a better idea than just deleting this, for all the reasons directly above. - Archduk3 20:06, November 27, 2010 (UTC)

Broaden topic to "metaphor"

Earlier today, I suggested to merge the new article Chicken and the Egg with this page. However, thinking about it further, that doesn't seem to be an idiom but a simple metaphor. Similarly, I'm not sure if "Needle in a haystack" really is an idiom.

Now, idioms are just a special case of metaphors - one where the act of "comparing" situations isn't that prominent anymore. So, to avoid having two articles about very similar topics, I suggest to rename this one to Metaphor and continue to use it for both metaphors and idioms. -- Cid Highwind 23:06, February 6, 2011 (UTC)

It might be worth keeping in mind that there's also a page called Proverb, which uses a very liberal interpretation of the concept for it's examples, and that there's a whole lot of canon sayings and expressions, which are currently either not documented, or in Proverb. This might be the time to start thinking about a more integrated solution. -- Capricorn 16:10, February 7, 2011 (UTC)

Not a bad idea. A metaphor page could also have a little blurb about the Tamarian language, since Picard mentioned that it uses metaphors.--31dot 21:13, February 7, 2011 (UTC)

Do we have a term that would cover a combination of Idiom and Proverb? We already have the same saying on both pages in "needle in the haystack", so a combined page seems like a good idea. - Archduk3 00:17, June 11, 2011 (UTC)