Talk:tiki torch

RFV discussion: December 2022–February 2023

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tiki torch

This has two senses: "1. A bamboo torch used as a party decoration and in tiki culture. 2. A symbol for various white nationalist movements." I am challenging sense 2: is this a separate thing? Or is it merely the thing in sense 1, having a certain use? If a communist group adopts (say) a shoe as a symbol, we wouldn't add a new sense "a communist symbol", though we might possibly change the main sense to "a thing you wear on your foot, also used as a symbol by communists", right? Equinox ◑ 17:37, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

Just two days ago, I was wondering about how sub rosa came to mean "privately, secretly, confidentially". I hadn't known that rose was (once?) a symbol of secrecy. I don't know of any mainstream dictionary that includes "symbol of" as a definition for a name of a symbol of this type, though there are exceptions, like swastika defined in MWOnline as "a swastika used as a symbol of anti-Semitism or of Nazism". The NED vol. 8 has numerous cites for under the rose as a run-in under rose and also has the definitions of it as symbol or the houses of York and Lancaster and of England. There are also several dictionaries of symbols. We could decide to include such definitions. We would have to agree on what constituted attestation for such definitions. DCDuring (talk) 18:19, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

I am personally okay with separate senses for things that are recognisably specialised emblems in some field, more specific than the general sense (like certain animals in heraldry that have to be drawn a certain way); and things that can generally be used to stand for a concept, rather than merely a pictorial symbol (like, say, monkey for "a person's temper, said to be "up" when they are angry"). But not for things that don't go beyond "this is an object we chose to use as an icon for our organisation". Equinox ◑ 18:28, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

Are you suggesting that attestation has to be from outside the entity that has selected the symbol. Would that exclude usage by members or "allies"? What about religious symbols, especially the more obscure ones? In this case, I would not expect there to be good attestation, but there might be. DCDuring (talk) 18:38, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

No, I didn't say that. I was only saying that the symbol needs to be distinct from the "thing it's a symbol of" (rather like how we don't add a sense at house saying "a little model or picture of a house", even though the word can be used that way). Ceci n'est pas une pipe. Equinox ◑ 20:12, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

Sense 2 is encyclopedic information, so I would support deletion or combination into the first sense. Ioaxxere (talk) 20:05, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

You, Equinox, have introduced RfD considerations into this. How do we distinguish, for RfD purposes, this sense of tiki torch and the "symbol of secrecy, confidentiality" sense of rose from the included sense of swastika or the following sense of cross ("A modified representation of the crucifixion stake, worn as jewellery or displayed as a symbol of religious devotion")? DCDuring (talk) 21:16, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

I agree with Equinox, based on the citations I've seen so far on the citations page, if we keep this it seems like it should be folded into sense 1 and not presented as a separate sense. Even hammer and sickle is defined as "A depiction of a sickle crossed with a hammer, used as a symbol of communism and the Soviet Union." (And even there, I'm tempted to drop "A depiction of" and just say "A sickle crossed...".) I see one poem which seems to use "tiki torches" metonymically to mean "tiki-torch-wielding Nazis", but if such metonymy were adequately attested it'd be its own sense, not this "A symbol..." sense. - -sche (discuss) 22:20, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

I get a little confused when RfC, RfD, and RfV run together. DCDuring (talk) 22:36, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

RFV Failed, not a separate sense. Ioaxxere (talk) 19:43, 24 February 2023 (UTC)