Talk:make a stink

Deletion debate

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make a stink

make a + stink? Seems more of a collocation than idiom. Compare make a fuss, make a complaint --Rising Sun talk? contributions 11:50, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Delete per nomination. Mglovesfun (talk) 12:03, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Seems like an idiom to me, I think "stink" only has this sense with "make" and "kick up" Polarpanda 19:27, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

And cause a stink. Mglovesfun (talk) 21:11, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Keep Other dictionaries have raise a stink and make a stink (AHD, McGrawHill Amer Idioms, Wordnet). Out of 68 uses of "[verb] a stink" at COCA, 58 were for "make" (36) and "raise" (22). Surprisingly to me, there was only one for "cause". DCDuring TALK 23:33, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

• Delete It's not necessarily clear whether the speaker means "make a bad smell (fart?)" or "make a complaint". However, raise a stink seems to clearly indicate the complaint, so it narrows the range of stink sufficiently to warrant an entry - although I don't think it is truly idiomatic because it does mean a combination of some meaning of both words. Facts707 12:19, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

  That argument would seem to say that we should have an entry for "make a stink" (because the meaning is unexpected) and not for "raise a stink", because it is compositional. DCDuring TALK 14:54, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Keep, make and stink have so many definitions between them and very few are relevant in the context of this phrase. - [The]DaveRoss 18:52, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Kept.​—msh210℠ 19:01, 16 June 2010 (UTC)