Talk:fun pack

RFD discussion: November 2015

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fun pack

"(Singapore) A free government-sponsored goody bag distributed to audiences attending events such as the Singapore National Day Parade."

Does not seem distinct enough from the primary sense to warrant an independent definition. -Cloudcuckoolander (talk) 19:03, 7 November 2015 (UTC)

• Delete. Fits easily into the original sense. P Aculeius (talk) 20:41, 7 November 2015 (UTC)
• Delete as identical to the first definition. Do we even need to let this run for a month, or could it be speedied.--Dmol (talk) 21:22, 7 November 2015 (UTC)
• It's a week for RFD, unless that's been changed. Renard Migrant (talk) 23:52, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

  @Renard Migrant: Did you mean to post this under the RfD for alcohol poisoning? Purplebackpack89 23:58, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

  Looks like a direct response to the point above, PBP. bd2412 T 00:08, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

  Well, what he said is germane to Wikitiki's re-opening of the alcohol poisoning RfD above. Purplebackpack89 00:11, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

• Not sure we should delete this def. The argument for it being that in SingE this is the only thing it means, that is, the more general sense is not used there. It's not like we need to save space.--Sonofcawdrey (talk) 23:55, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

  In the vicinity of New York, "the City" can only refer to "New York City", does that mean we need a separate New-York-specific definition for it, and, for that matter, one for essentially every city in the world? --WikiTiki89 04:46, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

  That's because the phrase "the City" is using the definite article; the word "city" by itself doesn't mean NYC in NY, it just means "city", so it is not an analogous case.--Sonofcawdrey (talk)

  But, re-looking at the citations, some of them are for "NDP fun pack" - which rather argues for a Singaporean understanding that "fun pack" has a wider meaning - i.e. one coincident with the first definition. It's not looking good. I shall abstain.--Sonofcawdrey (talk) 07:48, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

  @Sonofcawdrey we'd still cover the usage with the first definition, the second one only really adds 'government issued' which is not necessary to understand the meaning. Renard Migrant (talk) 11:44, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

  Perhaps we could move the info about the restricted usage in Singapore English to a usage note. No need to delete info that could be relevant to someone reading the entry, now that it already has been added by someone.--Sonofcawdrey (talk) 02:24, 13 November 2015 (UTC)

Precisely how would this differ from a "Seattle Fun Pack", a "Texas Fun Pack", or a "Today Show Fun Pack"? Or for that matter, a "Wendy's Kids' Meal". Sure, you only get it at Wendy's, and maybe it comes in a different package with different contents than a "Burger King Kids' Meal", but there's no need for either a special sense or a usage note. I think the same principle applies here. P Aculeius (talk) 05:43, 14 November 2015 (UTC)

It differs because it is used without a modifier, unlike all your examples. In SingE "fun pack", unadorned, refers to these government-issue things.--Sonofcawdrey (talk) 08:27, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

Comment: I'm from Singapore, and I'm not entirely convinced. The term fun pack was chosen by the Government to describe collections of items that were distributed free of charge to celebrate Singapore's jubilee year in 2015, but can it be concluded from this alone that the term refers only to Government-sponsored freebies? How will the term be used after 2015? I think it's premature to include the sense in question. Smuconlaw (talk) 12:04, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

Are you saying that a shopping mall in Singapore can't make up a "fun pack" consisting of the same sort of goodies? It wouldn't be a "fun pack" if made up by anybody but the government? P Aculeius (talk) 13:23, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

I'm agreeing with you. I don't think there's enough evidence that fun pack as used in Singapore is limited only to Government-sponsored items. One problem with looking for evidence of usage is that because of Singapore's jubilee this year, most recent online occurrences of the term relate to the Government-sponsored item. Smuconlaw (talk) 14:15, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

I was replying to Sonofcawdrey, sorry for the confusion. P Aculeius (talk) 15:17, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

Usage is king (of descriptive lexicography - which what we are supposed to be doing here), so let's not speculate what a shopping mall may or may not do and what they may or may not call it in the future - let's just look at the citations. The citations make it clear that it is not just a SG50 phenomenon, with SingE citations dating back to 2009, and they've apparently been in use since 1991 (https://www.youth.sg/Users/W/E/WeiyingGoh/2015/8/Evolution-of-NDP-funpacks). Still, that's only a few citations (but well over CFI needs). So I look further, a search of NewspaperSG database finds very little evidence for the term until after the 1990s, not much in any case, but also not any citations referring to the normal non-gov't usage (as per def 1). So Google Books: well, non-Singapore citations there are, dating back to the 1950s in the usual sense (def 1). Straight Google search restricted to site:.sg are overwhelmingly referring to the gov't issued fun packs. I can't see why anyone would object to this, based on the available evidence. As with all language, there are precious little absolutes, so of course I'm not suggesting that we have a usage note that says "In Singapore ONLY ever used ... etc.", merely that we have a usage note that notes the common usage in Singapore, something like "In Singapore chiefly used to ... etc." Anyhow, this discussion is supposed to be about a request for deletion of def 2 (fine delete away, I give that option my full support), so I guess we should desist with this discussion of whether or not to add an accurate and helpful usage note to the entry. Does that sound reasonable?--Sonofcawdrey (talk) 11:08, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

• Delete. Shoof (talk) 20:41, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

Sense deleted. bd2412 T 16:19, 23 November 2015 (UTC)