Talk:chickenpox party

RFD discussion: July 2020–October 2021

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illness parties

chickenpox party

chicken pox party

corona party

coronavirus party

covid party

covid-19 party

flu party

measles party

pox party

(and illness party)

The fact that you can construct such terms for so many contact- or air- transmissible illnesses suggests that they are SOP. ("HIV party" and "AIDS party" may also exist.) The finer points, e.g. some of them being aimed at children, are potentially extralexical, like you wouldn't necessarily know just from looking up "engagement"+"party" that it's a party to celebrate a recently-concluded engagement and not a party to get engaged at, while a "frat party" is a party held by a frat rather than (inherently) one to celebrate someone recently joining a frat. But I dunno, these are created by various different users, including one veteran editor, and several were RFVed (rather than RFDed) by another, so maybe people feel they are idiomatic... - -sche (discuss) 22:24, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

• Keep pox party, which is the most opaque of these combinations. The rest can adequately be disposed of with a sense at party. bd2412 T 00:46, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

Is one the original, upon which the rest were modeled? My impression is that "chickenpox party" or some variant thereof is the original term. If this is the case, I vote to keep the original term and delete the rest, replacing them by a corresponding sense at party. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 02:30, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

@Andrew Sheedy: Without question, the original term is "small-pox party". bd2412 T 16:59, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

If that is the case, I reaffirm my vote. Keep "small-pox party" (and its alternative forms) and add a new sense at party, with a note in the etymology about the origin of the sense in the practice of small-pox parties. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 02:49, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

I created measles party, apparently; I don't particularly remember it. I take the point that this seems to be a common construction X party for a lot of diseases X; however, I don't think the meaning is very obvious from party, so perhaps (as BD2412 seems to be suggesting) we could add a new subsense at party under sense 6 (social gathering) explaining this type of "party" with some examples. Equinox ◑ 17:14, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

Create small-pox party if there are three citations in the sense of the link above, as the oldest form and because the party uses variolation rather than passive infection. Add a new sense of party to handle the rest. Vox Sciurorum (talk) 12:20, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

I would consider a "party" where people are vaccinated or variolated to be a sense very distinct from a "party" where people go to catch a disease by normal spread, particularly given the use of "parties" by antivaccinationists to avoid actual vaccination for a condition. bd2412 T 01:26, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

• Delete all. The detail that the illnesses in “pox party” and “flu party” stand for infectious diseases in general is just rhetorics and exaggerated by Wikipedia. We could otherwise under many common diseases add “senses” according to which the word can be used pars pro toto for an infectious diseases of barely defined kind. Similar to “anything harmful to morals or public order” at pestilence as this word was used in inciting speeches across centuries with vague meaning but less notorious. Fay Freak (talk) 12:36, 21 July 2020 (UTC)
• Per BD2412, pox party, especially, is hard to understand from its parts, given the present definitions at pox, which do not include the meaning of an "infectious disease in general, and not a skin lesion disease in particular". Mihia (talk) 09:55, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

• Keep chickenpox/pox/measles/mumps/flu parties - i.e. the ones arranged for children to catch common communicable diseases that are more harmless as children than adults. I honestly had no idea what a "chickenpox party" was until I read the def., nor that such things existed. Not at all comprehensible from sop. Also keep small pox party, but that is a little different, as from pre-vaccination days. As for "covid-19 party" and syns ... well, the def provided by us is a fake-news def and should be removed - but there does seem to be a genuine def. "A party which people attend deliberately in defiance of lockdown regulations concerning the spread of the coronavirus". This would be a hot-word, of course. Dunno if all the variants are valid and attested.- Sonofcawdrey (talk) 09:17, 23 July 2020 (UTC)

This Daily Kos article would agree with you. Khemehekis (talk) 07:06, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

One detail, though. Smallpox parties (so far as the term is attested) are not actually from pre-vaccination days, as the smallpox vaccine was invented in 1796. It was the only effective vaccine in existence for about a hundred years after that, and the only one in popular use for several additional decades, so virtually all references to vaccination or a vaccine prior to the 1920s will be for the smallpox vaccine. bd2412 T 16:40, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

• At least keep pox party, measles party and similar entries for parties arranged for children. These are specifically for children and they are not parties to celebrate pox or measles, unlike a birthday party which is arguably more clearly SOP. As a side note: in Dutch, "coronafeestje" is generally used not as an event with the intent of spreading the coronavirus, but just a party as a "fuck you" to social distancing. See also w:nl:Coronaparty which is actually rather different from the English article. Alexis Jazz (talk) 13:57, 28 July 2020 (UTC)

  Is there any easily explained difference between coronafeest, coronafeestje, and anti-coronafeest? Is it a situation like flammable and inflammable where they look like antonyms but are synonyms? Vox Sciurorum (talk) 21:28, 29 July 2020 (UTC)

  @Vox Sciurorum coronafeestje is just the diminutive form of coronafeest. (see feest and feestje) As a rough guideline, if there are less than 10 guests, we'd probably call it a feestje. Coronafeest, coronafeestje, anti-coronafeest and schijt-aan-coronafeestje (schijt hebben aan) are all synonyms. Also, vlambaar (nl) and ontvlambaar. (nl) (not to be confused with Vlambeer which means flame bear) Alexis Jazz (talk) 04:01, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

  Maybe Voc was thinking about Appendix:Dutch diminutives where a -je is sometimes a different thing from the root word. (You kinda suggested that yourself, Alexis, regarding the difference between c~feest and c~feestje; but I'm not sure how "official" your definition is; this virus stuff is still mostly recent news.) Equinox ◑ 04:18, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

  Because I linked the diminutive instead of the root word? I guess a coronafeest(je) is usually small. If it gets too big, the police may invite themselves at which point it'll stop being a party. Likewise, verjaardagsfeestje seems to be slightly more common than verjaardagsfeest. (more red links? werk aan de winkel I guess, tomorrow) Alexis Jazz (talk) 04:31, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

• Comment: I have created the more generic illness party, and that should be kept, at least. Purplebackpack89 13:06, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

@Purplebackpack89 Quite the opposite, I'm afraid your new entry is the only one that should be deleted. A quick search suggests "illness party" is unlikely to be attestable. Alexis Jazz (talk) 17:34, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

• Keep all citable. The exact meaning of these terms is not readily deducible by consulting the entries for their components. One would most likely come away with the idea they are parties to celebrate overcoming the illnesses in question. Most people aren't going to piece together that these are gatherings at which a group of people are deliberately exposed to a contagion in the belief this will help build immunity. It's a concept that needs to be explained. WordyAndNerdy (talk) 02:21, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

• Comment. Why not just add the relevant sense at party and be done with it? There seems to be way too many of these "illness parties" variants to suggest non-SoP. ---> Tooironic (talk) 22:00, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

• Keep all. -- Dentonius (my politics | talk) 17:12, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

{{look}}

• Keep those specified by Alexis Jazz and according to the criteria given by WordyAndNerdy, move to RFV if necessary. ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 11:01, 17 December 2020 (UTC)

• Keep, as party doesn't seem to cover it (yet). Also covid party might have two senses: 1. party to spread corona as en.wt has it. 2. party during corona-times (with the intention of parting and not of spreading corona). --幽霊四 (talk) 02:34, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

Keep corona party with both meanings, weak keep covid party, redirect coronavirus party and covid-19 party.

Keep pox party, redirect chickenpox party, chicken pox party, smallpox party.

Delete illness party assuming it can't be attested. Abstain on flu party, measles party. DAVilla 07:55, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

Delete all, adding a relevant sense to party if really needed. — SGconlaw (talk) 16:23, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

RFD-kept for all (or no-consensus), "illness party" should be sent to RFV, and "smallpox party" should also be created. AG202 (talk) 01:48, 6 October 2021 (UTC)