Talk:walking skin cancer

RFD discussion: June–November 2022

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walking skin cancer

This is no more idiomatic than "walking advertisement for healthy living" or "walking STD" or "walking testament to the miracles of modern medicine as well as to the virtue of hard work" or "walking recipe for a heart attack" (all real examples). It's already covered by a sense at walking: "Incarnate as a human; living". Chuck Entz (talk) 14:13, 27 June 2022 (UTC)

Quite contradictory to keep articles such as walking boss, walking carpet, walking dictionary, walking dustbin, walking gentleman, walking lady, walking mattress and walking patient. Interestingly enough, this user deleted these just before putting the Delete-template, so nobody could use these as an argument against him/her. --85.76.79.92 15:23, 27 June 2022 (UTC)

Forgot to login before commenting. I'm the IP-address above: 85.76.79.92 --Pek~enwiki (talk) 15:25, 27 June 2022 (UTC)

Also to add, those quotations were not idiomatic, except for the one about Oregano Oil. Everything else is not idiomatic. You might want to check what the word idiomatic means, before you use it. --Pek~enwiki (talk) 15:28, 27 June 2022 (UTC)

From what I can tell, two of the quotations that were removed did not refer to "walking skin cancer", but "walking skin cancer factory" and "walking skin cancer advertisement", while the third was not really acceptable as an attestation.

In any event, unless you're referring to skin cancer that walks, this is idiomatic, though I'm not convinced that it's possible to derive its meaning from that sense of walking (even though it is the one being used), so I'm leaning keep. However, that's mostly because it actually refers to someone that is extremely tanned as a result of UV light. That may be because they're predisposed to getting skin cancer, but the tanned appearance is a key part of the meaning. Theknightwho (talk) 15:43, 27 June 2022 (UTC)

I think sense 4 of walking needs to be broadened, but the phrase "a walking X" is a common construction: "a walking contradiction", "a walking felony", "a walking STD", "a walking dictionary/encyclopedia", etc. But it is walking which does all of the work here. - TheDaveRoss 12:02, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

The issue is that it's still not possible to derive the meaning from the sum of its parts. It might be obvious if you have the relevant context, but that's not the same thing. Theknightwho (talk) 21:42, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

From the quotations we have now, it looks like it can have either meaning: either very pale or very tanned. If so, at least one of those definitions has to be idiomatic. - excarnateSojourner (talk | contrib) 00:13, 11 October 2022 (UTC)

And btw, since you mentioned "walking STD", it is an actual slang word, so it should also be added to Wiktionary. --Pek~enwiki (talk) 15:50, 27 June 2022 (UTC)

Keep. Binarystep (talk) 09:42, 24 September 2022 (UTC)

Keep as idiomatic. Before reading our definition my best guess was that it referred to an extremely tanned person as Theknightwho describes, or a person with a habit of suntanning. - excarnateSojourner (talk | contrib) 00:07, 11 October 2022 (UTC)

• RFD-kept: no 2/3-majority for deletion and nothing to override the keeps (WT:VP). The specific meaning "person with very pale skin" does not seem obvious from the parts. --Dan Polansky (talk) 10:10, 6 November 2022 (UTC)