Talk:nước mắt

RFD discussion: December 2017–June 2018

The following information passed a request for deletion (permalink).

This discussion is no longer live and is left here as an archive. Please do not modify this conversation, but feel free to discuss its conclusions.

---

nước mắt

@Wyang This is an SOP ("nước" for liquid and "mắt" for eyes, literally "liquid from the eyes"). Compare nước mũi (“any non-blood liquid coming out of your nose such as tears or mucus”, literally “nose liquid”), nước đái/tiểu (“any non-blood liquid coming out of one's urethra”, literally “pee liquid”), nước chanh (“any liquid coming out of a lime”, literally “lime liquid”), nước cống (“any liquid in a sewer”, literally “sewage liquid”), etc. There's nothing idiomatic about this phrase; it's a collocation, at best. ばかFumiko￥^talk 17:09, 14 December 2017 (UTC)

... Continued from User talk:Fumiko Take: it is included in Từ điển tiếng Việt (Vietnamese Dictionary) (by Viện Ngôn ngữ học, i.e. Vietnamese Institute of Linguistics), Đại Từ Điển Tiếng Việt (by Nguyễn Như Ý), etc.

The definition in the Institute of Linguistics' dictionary is: “Nước do tuyến ở mắt tiết ra khi khóc hay khi mắt bị kích thích mạnh”. Though technical, I think Viện Ngôn ngữ học's definition may have a point: not all fluid in the eyes is nước mắt, for example vitreous humour (dịch thuỷ tinh). VNNH's dictionary similarly has nước mũi, nước đái and nước tiểu, but not nước chanh or nước cống.

It's a bit tricky deciding whether something is SoP in East Asian languages. Unless there is evidence for the contrary, I think the Vietnamese Institute of Linguistics' Vietnamese Dictionary would be a good guide to follow regarding whether something in Vietnamese is a sum of parts or not, or what part of speech a word is. I'm sure the expert editors there have already debated amongst themselves, and considered the feedback from the public when making the dictionary, thus potentially saving us the trouble of doing so ourselves. Wyang (talk) 17:35, 14 December 2017 (UTC)

"not all fluid in the eyes": of course not. I said "from the eyes", as in "coming out of the eyes, visible and crystal clear, that can be seen even by the most scientifically illiterate of people", not "in the eyes". Terms for non-blood liquids that's not normally visible tend to merit entries of their own because most of them are Sino-Vietnamese derive (thuỷ dịch, dịch vị, dịch ngoại bào, etc.). Liquids that do get out of the body and become visible, and subsequently conceptualizable, and ultimately nameable, are a whole different story. nước mũi, for example, is so generic that it can cover any non-blood "liquid" (one of the senses of nước - "unspecified liquid") coming out of the nose, such as tears coming down of from the tear glands, or thick mucus alone.

I'm assuming there's also some other criteria for those to be included in those dictionaries, for example, something like "words or phrases that refer to a single and unique entity", in which case, it'd kind of make sense.

"I'm sure the expert editors there have already debated amongst themselves, and considered the feedback from the public when making the dictionary, thus potentially saving us the trouble of doing so ourselves." I'd agree with the "debate" part, but the "feedback" part is a huge speculation on your part.

Apparently Từ điển tiếng Việt also has SOP-worthy entries for nước sạch (literally “clean water”), nước gạo (literally “water left from rice washing”), but at the same time lists nước mắt as examples along with nước chè (literally “tea liquid”). ばかFumiko￥^talk 19:42, 14 December 2017 (UTC)

Nước mắt is not fluid 'from' the eyes. The water coming out of one's eyes after washing one's face, having a shower, being soaked in the rain, etc. is not nước mắt. The fluid flowing from one's eyes after ocular trauma is not nước mắt (although it contains nước mắt). The fluid dripping from the corners of one's eyes after the application of eyedrops is not nước mắt either. These are fluid coming out of the eyes, but they are not nước mắt. Nước mắt is not a simple combination of nước and mắt as it is neither water 'in' or 'from' the eyes; it refers specifically to the fluid produced by the lacrimal glands, which is often seen to exit the body through the eyes. Despite this, most of the nước mắt is actually drained into the nasal cavity (nasolacrimal duct). When the nasolacrimal duct is obstructed (tắc tuyến lệ), the treatment is to create an additional passage to drain nước mắt ― the lacrimal gland secretion ― into the nasal cavity (Phương pháp điều trị tối ưu là phẫu thuật tiếp khẩu túi lệ mũi, nghĩa là tạo một ra đường thoát mới giúp nước mắt chảy vào mũi trở lại.). Wyang (talk) 16:15, 15 December 2017 (UTC)

"The water coming out of one's eyes after washing one's face, having a shower, being soaked in the rain, etc.", "The fluid dripping from the corners of one's eyes after the application of eyedrops is not nước mắt either", these arguments are literally irrelevant, forced and very faulty. If one gets some sort of nasal spray or simply has some sort of NSFW liquid in their mouth by any means whatsoever, the liquids coming out would not be nước mũi or nước miếng either (of course they aren't!), and they shouldn't be because they're completely irrelevant. You're basically saying, "not everything found inside a bottle of condiment is a dead roach, so dead roaches are not a condiment ingredient." or "not everything coming out of one's butt is poop, so anal beads are not poop." Sure, but that's a borderline logic you're basing your arguments on. Pardon me for my poor choice of words, but by "from" I meant "originating from", not just "something randomly getting stuck in".

"it refers specifically to the fluid produced by the lacrimal glands, which is often seen to exit the body through the eyes." Going technical on the former part doesn't negate the latter part, upon which words are created. How do you think people coined a phrase as plain and shallow as nước mắt? By examining the anatomical structure of the eyes and the tear glands and then naming it as such?

"The fluid flowing from one's eyes after ocular trauma is not nước mắt (although it contains nước mắt)" Are you sure about that? I know you hold your sources highly credible, but they also include some questionable definitions. For example, nước sạch is defined as "clean water for daily use" which is really, really odd, because underground water could be considered somewhat "clean", but it's not necessarily for "daily use". ばかFumiko￥^talk 08:48, 16 December 2017 (UTC)

Nước mắt is not fluid 'originating from' the eyes either. Numerous types of fluids originate from the eyes: there are the physical ones, such as aqueous humour (dịch thuỷ tinh), tears (nước mắt), cytosol (dịch bào tương), as well as the pathological ocular fluids, which can be serous, serosanguinous, or even purulent. It is not plausible to derive “tears” by combining the concepts of “unspecified fluid” and “eye” in a simple, non-sum-of-parts manner, as tears are not equivalent to fluid 'present in', 'flowing from', or 'originating from' the eyes. Nước mắt is not the only fluid present in, flowing from, or originating from the eyes, and most of the nước mắt in fact flows into the nasal cavity, not out of the eyes.

The biological sense discussed here needs to be distinguished from a literal interpretation of the “N + N” nước + mắt combination as nước của mắt or nước trong mắt, which is definitely sum of parts. When one speaks of áp lực nước trong mắt, one is referring to the intraocular pressure, maintained by the fluid of aqueous humour. Whereas if one speaks of áp lực nước mắt, one intends to mean the pressure of the tears, not any other fluid in the eyes. Nước mắt is a much smaller and very well-defined subset of the literal combination of nước + mắt. In ocular trauma and other medical contexts, nước mắt only refers to the lacrimal secretion as a response to irritation (the TĐTV definition), and not other fluids or discharges resulting directly from trauma, etc. See “Bệnh học chấn thương mắt”, “Vết thương xuyên thủng nhãn cầu”, “Chấn thương mắt”, “Chấn Thương Nhãn Cầu & Hốc Mắt”.

The other nước words need to be considered separately... as the words could be individually as intricate as this one. Wyang (talk) 11:25, 16 December 2017 (UTC)

: "Eye liquid" does not mean "tears" automatically. It is a quite obscure idiom, at best. 178.49.152.66 16:51, 30 December 2017 (UTC)

I prefer to keep this term but we need to have a separate CFI for Vietnamese. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 05:37, 15 December 2017 (UTC)

• Keep using the lemming heuristic (WT:LEMMING), invoking the dictionaries mentioned by Wyang. --Dan Polansky (talk) 20:38, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
• RFD kept: no consensus for deletion. --Dan Polansky (talk) 08:24, 10 June 2018 (UTC)