Talk:nature-lover

RFD discussion: September 2021–May 2022

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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.

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nature-lover, nature lover

SOP. PUC – 10:15, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

nature-lover (hyphenated)

The same user who slapped the RFD notice on it added the translation section. Where is the logic there? DonnanZ (talk) 10:48, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

Delete. Imetsia (talk) 14:36, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

Delete as SoP. — SGconlaw (talk) 16:02, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

Keep. I can find no reason for deletion. And there is a loophole... DonnanZ (talk) 16:12, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

Delete. Rare misspelling of nature lover, which is a SOP (just like wine lover, boating lover, ...).  --Lambiam 16:38, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

The hyphenated form is either very rare or unattested (so it can be deleted), but nature lover is a well-established and very common word, and must be kept. ·~ dictátor·mundꟾ 19:47, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

“A person who has an intense interest in the natural world” – as opposed to the supernatural world?  --Lambiam 13:43, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

One who loves nature. “What Man has made of Man”— William Wordsworth ·~ dictátor·mundꟾ 14:24, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

Well, the natural environment. Equinox ◑ 14:42, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

It is an example of a definition that is only comprehensible to someone who already knows the meaning of the term being defined.  --Lambiam 09:34, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

Strong Keep. ·~ dictátor·mundꟾ 20:54, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

Keep The blithe and glib contention that "The hyphenated form is either very rare or unattested" was utterly, unmistakably and irreversibly blown out by five durably archived cites from five authors with English Wikipedia articles. (see below for details) --Geographyinitiative (talk) 20:01, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

@Geographyinitiative Whether or not that's true is irrelevant. The term is still SOP, hyphenated or not. PseudoSkull (talk) 20:04, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

Argument from Bat Guano
Under Wiktionary's seven definitions for nature, a nature-lover must love polio and its effects on the body as well as the odor and taste of bat guano. I would contend that no definition (1 through to 7) of "nature" that Wiktionary current contains is the one used in nature-lover. "someone who likes plants, birds and other natural phenomena" [1] well that excludes (1) terminal cancer, (2) rancid dog turds, and (3) smallpox all of which are encompassed by definitions 1 and 3 of nature. Here again, we see "A person who enjoys spending time in the countryside and observing wild animals and plants." [2] Such a person might be disinclined to visit a desert island with no trees and birds (Baker Island, etc) and hence does not love any nature under Wiktionary's understanding of nature. In conclusion, nature-lovers are differentiated from those who are bat-sh*t crazy. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 20:12, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

Not convincing. One would not expect a "food lover" to enjoy rotten food, even though rotten food is a subset of food. Equinox ◑ 21:54, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

@Geographyinitiative As someone who went to the Boy Scouts throughout my youth, I can with experience tell you that "nature" is most certainly used outside the context of this phrase with the same definition. For example, one might say "I'm a nature person." as in they love nature (and yes, that is something I've heard before, many times). "You've gotta love the beautiful nature of this park." (in that context meaning the scenery of the outdoor environment) "You shouldn't spend so much time indoors, you should see more of nature." All essentially the same definition. "Nature lover" is just a convenient combination of this sense and "lover" that happens to be used a lot, nothing more, nothing less. If the current entry at nature indeed doesn't cover this definition, it should. PseudoSkull (talk) 22:22, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

I must be peculiar because actually I would probably hyphenate "nature-lover". To me, hyphenation seems logical. It is annoying for us that Google search seems unable to properly discriminate hyphenated terms. When I search for "nature-lover", I get mostly hits for "nature lover". Assuming that Google is serving "nature lover" and "nature-lover" in their true proportions, it does seem that the hyphenated form is unusual. I only found two so far: [3] and [4]. Ngrams shows "nature-lover" a goodly fraction of "nature lover", but we suspect that Ngrams may too be unreliable with hyphens (though specific issues that apparently afflict the "heatresistant" results seem not to apply here). To me, "nature lover" and "nature-lover" are either both SoP or both not SoP, so if we keep "nature lover" but not "nature-lover" this can only be because the latter is very rare. I do question that. I feel unsure whether there is enough non-SoP meaning in either. Again, the question is: Does "nature lover"/"nature-lover" mean anything more than "lover of nature"?, and also, if the answer to that question is "no", Is the sense in which "nature" is meant in this phrase likely to be unclear? Mihia (talk) 21:15, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

The date of the attached quotation could be relevant. Use of a hyphen may have been more prevalent in 1938 than it is now. DonnanZ (talk) 08:13, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

Delete, per Lambiam or if kept, redirect. --Robbie SWE (talk) 08:49, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

Redirect to...? ·~ dictátor·mundꟾ 14:24, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

Delete--4SnavaA (talk) 10:09, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

• OK guys, who knew, but the way to find hyphenated examples in Google Books is to search for "naturelover" (well, it worked with "heatresistant"!). As many examples as you like -- many but by no means all at end-of-line. I must say I was very disbelieving that the hyphenated form was as rare as the "nature-lover" search suggested, and I think the new evidence proves that of course it is not. I would even go so far as to say that Ngrams may be correct, though it must still be open to doubt. Anyway, on the basis that the hyphenated form is not rare, and that IMO there is just enough non-SoP (or non-obvious-SoP) meaning, I vote keep. Those who voted delete on the understanding that the hyphenated form is very rare and/or a misspelling may wish to reconsider. Certainly, there is no way IMO that it can be considered a misspelling. Mihia (talk) 17:26, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

  Oh, good to know about the Google search hack. — SGconlaw (talk) 17:50, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

• Our SoP theory seems to be seriously flawed. How can we delete words that are well-attested, well-established in literature, and have non-English translations? In this case, nature(-)lover is a compound word and it indeed passes as a valid dictionary entry. Remember, “all words in all languages”? It just seems like some people personally do not like a word, and therefore are flocking together to get it deleted. Please do not delete this word, or else Wiktionary would lose its legitimacy! ·~ dictátor·mundꟾ 19:00, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

We agreed in a vote that hyphenated terms are to be treated in the same way as spaced terms in respect of the SoP criterion, so, as I mentioned somewhere, "nature lover" and "nature-lover" are either both SoP or both not. The hyphen doesn't matter. Whether they are SoP is a fine judgement IMO. In my opinion they are just about not, because of the restricted or special meaning of "nature" in those phrases. Others may disagree. If a term voted SoP has worthwhile non-part-by-part translations, it can nevertheless be kept as a "translation hub". Mihia (talk) 19:08, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

Delete both. @Inqilābī My feelings for the word itself are neutral. For an analogy, while I may be a cat lover (which I very much am), that doesn't necessitate in my mind that cat lover should be an entry at Wiktionary. While nature lover only uses the word "nature" in a specific sense (i.e. the environment of the outdoor wilderness), the term is still SOP. You might say someone is a nature person too, meaning that they like the environment of the outdoors. While nature lover is more common than that, it is still SOP and should not be an entry for this reason. Please read WT:SOP for reasons and justifications as to why we don't want SOP entries to be kept. I point out that I don't have some undue bias against the entry for a reason—that is because as I look at your comment here, it seems that perhaps you are in fact the one with somewhat of a bias for the word and against Wiktionary consensus. You want the word to be kept because you like the word, due to its popularity and use. This becomes more apparent by the fact that your comment seems to be a begging plea not to delete the word, which is on its own at least somewhat an appeal to emotional bias. I don't want to assign intent to some definite extent, but it certainly seems that way. If you have an issue with our SOP policy you can bring it up formally, however I encourage not to vote based on a preconceived opinion against our consensus on the issue. By the way, hyphenation does not eliminate SOPness, because cat-lover or nature-person could also exist in the same way. PseudoSkull (talk) 19:21, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

cat(-)lover aint the same thing as nature(-)lover: the ’cat’ in the former word can be substituted with millions of creatures— which would make any such words blatant SoPs; however nature(-)lover is clearly not SoP. My judgement is not any emotional appeal as you claim. Likewise, wine-lover (as mentioned above) is SoP as well, and I have never heard any term like nature guy before. ·~ dictátor·mundꟾ 20:39, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

I believe you when you say that you never heard a term like nature guy, but it is hardly uncommon: [5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45].  --Lambiam 13:17, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

@Inqilābī The fact that "nature" is a broader concept which could encompass a few different interpretations doesn't make it automatically an idiom—when people talk about "nature" (in general) in this sense, they're talking about the broader environment of the outdoors. You could say "I love nature", "You've gotta love the nature at this mountain range", "I'm a nature person and not an indoors person", etc. These are all the same definition being used, and "nature lover" just happens to be a very convenient collocation of two words that is very often used; popularity and it being a vague concept doesn't make it any less SoP, though. PseudoSkull (talk) 22:22, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

A wine lover is, in one word, an œnophile in French. And a cat lover is not necessarily into non-domesticated felid species, such as the bobcat. Moreover, cat lover is one word (Katzenliebhaber(in)) in German. In short, these are invalid arguments; the polysemy of components, or the existence of one-word translations, doth not an idiomatic expression make.  --Lambiam 10:30, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

If nature lover indeed be SoP, then how do we find the term as an entry in other online dictionaries? How do we get this term as an well-established idiom in Google Books? If our SoP criterion is this strict, then we are doing an excellent job making this project substandard. What about the existence of the entry book lover? ·~ dictátor·mundꟾ 11:52, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

book lover is spared by the existence of booklover, and WT:COALMINE. DonnanZ (talk) 12:22, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

Yes, some editors are determined to create a substandard project, they see that allowing one through is the thin edge of the wedge, and would prompt a flood of others less worthy of inclusion. They are not prepared to consider the merits for inclusion of each one. I would not recommend bizarre examples such as fried banana lover and battered sausage lover, but the example under consideration here, yes. DonnanZ (talk) 12:55, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

If someone presents the merits for inclusion of nature lover, I’m prepared to consider them – but if the arguments, upon consideration, are found to be so generic that they also apply to nature guy and cat lover, do not expect me to accept them.  --Lambiam 13:25, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

In cases such as this, your view of "worthy of inclusion" often seems to rest on whether a term is common and/or familiar to you. AFAIK, and someone correct me if I am wrong, we have no existing inclusion policy applicable to such cases that makes any reference to a term being common and familiar, provided only that it meets the minimum attestation standards. If you would like, for example, "nature lover" to be included, and "banana lover" to be excluded, on the basis that the former is "more common", may I suggest that you make a general policy-change suggestion e.g. at the Beer Parlour, assuming you haven't already. Mihia (talk) 22:16, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

In no way are we bound by the decisions of other lexicographers (which are often mutually incompatible). I see no convincing argument that nature lover is any more idiomatic than nature person^[46][47][48] or science-fiction lover^[49][50][51].  --Lambiam 13:17, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

So you don't want to be bound by what other lexicographers print, but at the same time you can use what they publish as a guide for inclusion. And "lover" terms are generally lacking, even nigger lover, which OneLook says appears nowhere other than Wiktionary. That's not really a surprise, but does it fulfil the criteria for inclusion, according to your rules, if there was no entry for niggerlover? Naturelover does get a few Google hits, probably not enough to justify an entry, and I don't want to abuse WT:COALMINE. DonnanZ (talk) 10:45, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

The context-providing meaning of nigger lover, in particular the fact (not properly reflected in our definition) that the term was historically specifically used as slur for an opponent of slavery (practically synonymous in the American context with abolitionist, while identifying the speaker as a bigotted anti-abolitionist) and now by white supremacists for someone opposing racism, makes this more than a sum of parts.  --Lambiam 15:55, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

I can accept that, can you accept nature-lover? DonnanZ (talk) 09:06, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

What I might accept is an argument for keeping the term. I presented my an argument; where is yours? All I see is “I can find no reason for deletion”, but that is not an argument. As a counsel for the defence, would you plead “Your Honour, I can find no reason to convict my client” and expect this to have an effect? And there is the alleged existence of an unspecified loophole, which IMO does also not qualify as an argument.  --Lambiam 22:08, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

Google Books is irrelevant: "buy a car" gets "about 738,000 results", and "car-buying" gets "about 71,500 results". By the way: if someone says "I just bought a car", I immediately think of something one drives, not something pulled by a locomotive. That's not evidence of idiomaticy, it's just the way things work in the real world. Chuck Entz (talk) 13:36, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

Keep or Convert into a translation hub. Do you really think no English speaker would ever want to know what nature-lover means in a different language? Translating the parts and trying to combine them often yields wrong or unidiomatic translations. --Fytcha (talk) 11:50, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

I don't entirely disagree about the translation hub (I mentioned it myself also), but it worries me a bit that translation hubs can get out of hand. I mean, you can say about very large numbers of SoP English phrases that combining translations of the parts on a dumb look-up basis, with no actual knowledge of the target language, can produce unidiomatic results or even nonsense. Mihia (talk) 21:55, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

Yes, and that's why I find Fytcha's argument, which has been brought up by various people over the years, incredibly irritating. I've no idea what they're trying to turn the dictionary into. You can't expect to find absolutely everything there is to know about translation from one language into another in a dictionary. PUC – 11:38, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

Why not? We are not paper, nor are we bound by any law or limitation prohibiting us from providing sufficient information for an English speaker to get a grasp of any other given language. In fact, we already have numerous appendices that give guidance on the structural elements of other languages. Presumably, other-language Wiktionaries can do the same thing. Our mission should be expansive. We are here to help. bd2412 T 01:27, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

We are not bound by law or limitation from providing recipes or music downloads or weather forecasts either. It doesn't mean that we should. IMO you cannot expect a dictionary to give you a translation of arbitrary phrases such as "first man on the Moon" or "fairy at the bottom of my garden", which is where "translation hub" would ultimately lead if taken too far. Well, certainly if we wanted to do that, it would be a separate translation feature, not individual entries for every phrase. Mihia (talk) 08:51, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

Because not every translation issue has to do with lexicology, which is what a dictionary, i.e. a collection of lexical items, is supposed to deal with. There are other considerations at play in translation, which are not within our remit. If people want to create appendices to touch upon these, I've got no problem with that, but we should not be mindlessly creating entries every time a translation from one language to the other is not straightforward; as I said, the issue may not be lexical at all, but be part of a larger pattern. PUC – 13:04, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

When I see a garbled Google translate effort because the algorithm doesn't know the meaning of phrases, that strikes me as a lexicological issue. I would point out to Mihia that the phrase "fairy at the bottom of my garden" is meaningless in American English, and would therefore be interpreted by most English-speaking people in the world to mean something different than what it means in the UK. bd2412 T 22:58, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

I would have thought that any confused fellow countryman of yours would look up ‘garden’ rather than the whole phrase and would end up seeing the synonym ‘yard’, making such a phrasal entry redundant. Back to the matter at hand, I say delete the hyphenated form (nature-lover) and weak keep on the unhyphenated. Overlordnat1 (talk) 02:02, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

We have gardens, but they don't have "bottoms". What does it mean for something to be "at the bottom" of a garden? Which kind of "fairy" is relevant to that "bottom"? bd2412 T 05:13, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

It’s a long-standing insulting joke in the U.K that if someone considers themselves to be mystic/spiritual, or if they’re just plain nuts, they ‘think there are fairies (or ‘is a fairy’) at the bottom of their garden’. It’s because of the alleged Cottingley fairies (as in the mythical creatures, not homosexuals!) which had Arthur Conan Doyle fooled [52]. As far as ‘top’ and ‘bottom’ are concerned, ‘top of the garden’ is equivalent to ‘front of the yard’ (U.S) and ‘bottom of the garden’ is equivalent to ‘back of the yard’ (U.S). Now that I’ve checked I’ve realised that, incredibly, we don’t have definitions at top and bottom consistent with this. I can’t think of any other context than gardens where top and bottom are used this way though, so we should probably just create entries top of the garden and bottom of the garden and list them under derived terms in top and bottom, rather than adding new senses or sub senses to the main entries for top and bottom. Overlordnat1 (talk) 11:57, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

I don't think we actually refer to a "front of the yard" or "back of the yard" at all in the U.S.; we have a front yard (between the house and the street) and a backyard (behind the house). bd2412 T 20:35, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

I could have been a bit clearer, ‘the bottom of the garden’ specifically refers to the far end of the back garden/yard (which is to say the end furthest from the house which forms part of the same property; in the vast majority of instances, the garden is joined directly to the house in question) and never the far end of the front garden/yard. Is there an American idiom with this precise meaning or would you have to say ‘the back of the back yard’ or ‘the far end of the back yard’? Overlordnat1 (talk) 22:48, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

There is not - we would literally just call it "the end of the yard". I would have assumed that the "bottom of the garden" meant under the ground. We are two peoples divided by a common language. bd2412 T 06:59, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

I’ve created corresponding senses at top and bottom. Overlordnat1 (talk) 19:12, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

nature lover (unhyphenated)

Note that @Inqilābī has moved the hyphenated form to the non-hyphenated form, so I assume the discussion is no longer simply about the hyphenated form but about whether the non-hyphenated form itself is SoP (I think it is, and so would still vote to delete). — SGconlaw (talk) 17:56, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

And I see that "nature lover" has also been added to the heading here. I'm sorry but I strongly disagree with making these kinds of fundamental changes to the whole basis of a vote while it is in progress, even effectively reassigning votes that have already been cast. Mihia (talk) 18:34, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

Yes, I’m not sure it was a good idea for the entry to have been moved in the middle of the discussion, but it was done. Feel free to vote afresh for the unhyphenated term below. — SGconlaw (talk) 18:44, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

I think the first section likewise needs to have the subheading "nature-lover (hyphenated)", otherwise it can still easily appear that votes that were cast for the hyphenated form apply to both, which may not have been the intention of the voter, and in some cases clearly was not. In fact I will do that now. Mihia (talk) 19:01, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

• I undid the move just now; but anyway, keep both. ·~ dictátor·mundꟾ 18:59, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

• No, it wasn't a good idea to move it, anyway keep both. As I see it, nature means a generally unspoilt outdoor environment. DonnanZ (talk) 09:11, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

BTW, Norwegian Bokmål naturlover is a red herring for translation purposes; = laws of nature. DonnanZ (talk) 11:40, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

• Delete both (unhyphenated and hyphenated)--4SnavaA (talk) 05:27, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

• Delete both. Vox Sciurorum (talk) 14:54, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

• Seems very sum-of-parts to me, per PseudoSkull. It doesn't mean tree hugger, but doesn't imply it either. The hyphen isn't enough to merit inclusion. I'd be OK to keep nature lover as a translation hub, given how common it is. No strong feelings on it. DAVilla 04:00, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

• Keep I transferred the entry to 'nature lover' (without hyphen) and added cites. Collins English Dictionary and Lexico have this entry; admittedly Merriam Webster does not. I would advise against cutting words that appear in authoritative dictionaries if Wiktionary wants to maintain its legitimacy, regardless of the policy rationales involved. Rather: the Wiktionary policy should be remolded to fit this word into Wiktionary if the current policy would disallow it. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 12:18, 13 April 2022 (UTC)

No consensus to delete. This is a very convoluted set of discussions, with opnions all over the map, but there is clearly no consensus for any specific outcome. bd2412 T 05:10, 2 May 2022 (UTC)