Talk:law of the tongue

Sense 2

There have been documentaries on this, based on old film footage and whaling records. Old Tom is in a museum somewhere with the story. A summary is here. kwami (talk) 18:42, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

RFV discussion: August 2015–February 2016

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law of the tongue

Rfv-sense of the agreement between orcas and whalers. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 20:24, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

This is fucking hilarious. Surely not between orcas and whalers but whalers and someone else (i.e. someone human). How can whales invite people on whale hunt, and why? Do foxes invite people on fox hunts? Renard Migrant (talk) 18:03, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

The idea is that the orcas and the whalers in effect cooperatively hunt big whales. There is a theory that wolves evolved into dogs as a result of cooperative hunting with humans, though I prefer the theory that the development occurred as a result of wolves scavenging at middens around human settlements. DCDuring TALK 18:42, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

It would almost certainly be attestable from Google Scholar, but it seems encyclopedic to me. DCDuring TALK 18:49, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

I've added some citations - although I agree with @DCDuring that it seems encyclopedic. Perhaps this should be moved to requests for deletion instead. Kiwima (talk) 21:45, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

From the quotes it seems this "agreement" is more folkloric than scientific, but that doesn't make it less includable. Surely it can be worded to be more dictionarian and less encyclopedic. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 06:03, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

Nobody expects a reader or hearer to understand this English term without an explanation, as the citations show. Maybe in a Maori language it functions more like a true component of a language. DCDuring TALK 12:55, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

Not Maori - we're talking Australian Aborigines here. An entirely different ethnic group (just to be a pedant here) Kiwima (talk) 23:38, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

My mistake. DCDuring TALK 00:01, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

• @Kiwima: To me, most of those citations look more like mentions than uses, for the most part, although I'd appreciate if others would judge as well. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 16:57, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

I agree. All four look like mentions to me. —Mr. Granger (talk • contribs) 17:41, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

I've never been entirely comfortable with the mention vs. use distinction. It seems to me that the idea behind that rule is that we want to avoid the "dictionary only" type of words, that are defined but not actually used. In all of the citations I added, the phrase was introduced in a mention-type way, but it was in order to use it to describe something the author was talking about -- more of a gray area in my book. Still, I am not someone who is involved in setting up the rules, so I am quite willing for the group to decide. I am merely providing the citations I find.Kiwima (talk) 20:50, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

In thinking about this one, I agree that it doesn't really belong in Wiktionary - but not because of attestability. I think it doesn't belong because it is the sort of thing that belongs in an encyclopedia rather than a dictionary. The usage "law of the tongue" is WAY too local to belong in a dictionary. Wrangling about "use" vs. "mention" can be such a gray area - there are quotes that are clearly use, quotes that are clearly mention, and a whole lot that are a judgement call. Kiwima (talk) 19:32, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

Agree with Metaknowledge and Mr. Granger. The following are mentions to me: "... became known as the Law of the Tongue", "... what locals call the law of the tongue", "The Law of the Tongue was that ...", "It was called the Law of the Tongue ...". There, the term does not have the burden of carrying a meaning but rather is assigned the meaning. Thus, in "X became known as Y", "X was called Y", and the like, Y is mentioned, not used. Such mentions can be helpful as an aid in meaning clarification (with care), but do not count toward in-use attestation. --Dan Polansky (talk) 08:49, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

• RFV failed. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 23:11, 14 February 2016 (UTC)