Talk:what was someone thinking

RFD discussion: January–June 2018

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what was someone thinking

what was someone smoking

I don't think this falls within the scope of a dictionary. --Per utramque cavernam (talk) 12:54, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

@Per utramque cavernam First of all, they're quite common phrases. Second of all, I don't believe you can deduce the meaning of the phrases from what+were+they+thinking, and certainly not what+were+they+smoking. If you can tell me how this can be labelled as SOP, I'm all ears. PseudoSkull (talk) 16:24, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

In my view, the fact that "what were you thinking...?" doesn't simply mean "what were you thinking...?" (a neutral-tone question) hasn't much to do with lexicology; it's a semantic/pragmatic phenomenon. It doesn't operate at the level of the lexicon, but at a higher level, that of context.

I'm slightly more hesitant for "what were you smoking...", but I suspect it's not really a lexical phenomenon either.

Sorry, my answer is very vague; it's more of a feeling at the moment. --Per utramque cavernam (talk) 16:51, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

Feel like we should probably keep the "smoking" one, because the set of people who would say "what was Bob smoking?" doesn't overlap much with the set of people who actually smoke drugs. A similar phrase is the "X is Y on acid!" thing, which again has nothing to do with the drug (and I, as someone who has never taken acid, might well use the phrase, and know what it means) but has entered popular culture. Equinox ◑ 08:13, 12 January 2018 (UTC)

Extra babble: I periodically look at the OED's quarterly "what's new" lists and some of the most interesting ones are phrases like this. They sometimes look a bit silly when you abstract them to the "one does this" level. I would rather that we have this is me than that we omit coverage because the lemma is ugly. (Still waiting for the WikiGrammar project too!) Equinox ◑ 08:21, 12 January 2018 (UTC)

• Keep "...smoking", delete "...thinking". —Mahāgaja (formerly Angr) · talk 08:21, 12 January 2018 (UTC)

  Yes, keep "smoking" per Equinox, delete "thinking" per Utramque cavernam. Our !votes sound like "superliminal messaging" for a tobacco company, haha: keep smoking, delete thinking... - -sche (discuss) 16:51, 16 January 2018 (UTC)

• Keep: The nomination rationale is not specified in terms of WT:CFI. As for the implied sum-of-parts claim, you cannot translate "what was someone thinking" word-for-word into Czech and get a useful translation; it seems something more is going on than the sum of parts. --Dan Polansky (talk) 15:26, 3 February 2018 (UTC)
  • I find that Czech point (pun unintended) fairly irrelevant. --Per utramque cavernam (talk) 17:41, 6 February 2018 (UTC)

Keep both, since they're not SOP. They're both set phrases and idiomatic. PseudoSkull (talk) 07:18, 25 February 2018 (UTC)

Closed as kept with respect to what was someone smoking; closed as no consensus with respect to what was someone thinking. bd2412 T 23:59, 3 June 2018 (UTC)