Talk:buried treasure

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buried treasure

Treasure which has been buried; sum of parts, not obviously idiomatic. What was this doing on Wiktionary:Wanted entries anyway? Is there another meaning? -- Visviva 03:47, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

By my lights, a figuratively buried figurative treasure wouldn't warrant an entry, but perhaps someone thinks so. DCDuring TALK 03:56, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

I added the term. It has both a literal set phrase sense and a figurative sense. The literal concept of buried treasure evokes images of pirates and piracy, and of treasure chests. This connotation is not inherent in the sum of "buried" + "treasure". The figurative sense shows up in sources like these: [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7]. --EncycloPetey 04:34, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Buried treasure has at least two idiomatic meanings. 1) A reference specifically to pirate treasure, even out of context—as in, treasure specifically buried by a stereotypical (mythical) pirate, and found with a treasure map (!), as popularized by Treasure Island and probably all pirate fiction since. 2) Like treasure trove, "buried treasure" is also used to refer to any valuable find, uncoviering something that was hidden, buried or not, as in "The best place to look for buried treasure is the library." [8] Dmcdevit·t 04:58, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, buried#Adjective can also have the meaning "hidden, concealed." So the figurative sense doesn't seem obviously non-compositional to me. And I have to dispute the association with pirates; a cursory check of b.g.c. shows all sorts of references to buried treasure in pirate-free locations like New Mexico, Oklahoma, and the Sri Lankan interior. (I was rather surprised to find that w:Buried treasure focuses on pirates, as I would have expected more general coverage of the topic.) Seems like this can be (and is) used pretty freely in any relevant sense of "buried" or "treasure."

IMO those who write of "the buried treasure of Jean Lafitte" and "the buried treasure of the Kandyan kings" are using this collocation in exactly the same way. But I could be persuaded otherwise -- is this ever used out of context to refer to specifically to pirates -- that is, where it is not obvious in context that the treasure would have been buried by pirates? -- Visviva 05:15, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't care if you delete the article. However, "treasure" has so many different connotations (treasure can mean something different to each person - i.e. gold/goal/knowledge/etc.) Yet, with this definition, I used the common type relating to pirate, and have included a reference to Wikipedia since I retrieved the idea for the definition from there. miranda 05:39, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for your work. I don't mean to disparage this contribution in any way (although I realize it probably seems that way). The entry was quite well-composed, and you are to be commended for filling an open request.

To respond to your point, I guess it's the very fact that "buried" and "treasure" can have so many meanings that bothers me -- as far as I can tell, looking at the various uses on Google Books, "buried treasure" can have any of those meanings. That would seem to make it non-idiomatic. -- Visviva 12:54, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, the stuff between the lines makes it worth keeping. DAVilla 06:28, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

OK, I realize that there is a connection between pirates and buried treasure. But is there a connection between the word "buried treasure" and pirates? I wouldn't normally make the connection myself, unless I happened to be on a seacoast somewhere. For example, if my cousin were searching for buried treasure in Indiana, I would assume that an outlaw or a miser was involved, not a pirate. -- Visviva 12:54, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

But in that case, you've added context information by specifying geography. In the absence of other context, I think first of the stereotypical image of a pirate's chest. --EncycloPetey 13:54, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Cited as figurative treasure, figuratively buried. Something looks strange on the page, however...too many numbers in the quotations section. --Jackofclubs 23:44, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Fixed it by removing the templates and properly formatting the list.

Yeah, this template often breaks on me. I should bring this up somewhere. --Jackofclubs 00:33, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Since when is buried treasure under water? Pirates, and others, bury it on land where they can later find it. —Michael Z. 2009-06-19 00:17 z

Good point about underwater. In popular culture, treasure is always buried underground. Sometimes the underground is also under the water, but [[underground]] should sover that. --Jackofclubs 00:33, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Keep, often refers to something that is not treasure, and not buried! Mglovesfun (talk) 09:31, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

• Kept and closed for no consensus to delete.--Jusjih 16:50, 12 July 2009 (UTC)