Talk:garden hose

Deletion debate

The following information has failed Wiktionary's deletion process.

It should not be re-entered without careful consideration.

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garden hose

Wikipedia page notwithstanding, this is sum of parts: a hose one uses in or is found in the garden. Can be re-expressed as "yard hose", "backyard hose", "outside hose", etc. Delete. ---> Tooironic 09:44, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Not "sum of parts" as mentioned in the edit comment when created. Narrows the meaning of "hose" to just the "water" use, i.e. the phrase does not mean "stockings worn in the garden" or "a tube to hold up tomatoes or other vegetables in the garden, much like string or wire is usually used". A garden hose is also usually used to carry water, not other fluids. It also is a synonym for "hosepipe". The test is whether a person who is reasonably fluent in English and knows the component words would reasonably be able to figure out the meaning of the term without prior knowledge of it. Facts707 09:52, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

"yard hose" and "backyard hose" should also be there as alternative forms, although they are much less common according to Google. "Outside hose" should probably not be defined - it does not appear to mean a garden hose necessarily and could be any hose designed for outdoor use, including stockings (i.e. the meaning can only be determined by the context). Facts707 09:57, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Delete, I think. Is it just me, or are these debates becoming less and less clear cut? Mglovesfun (talk) 11:57, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

It is not the debates so much, but is also not just you. I have had the same experience. That's why I try to pin down criteria, if possible. DCDuring TALK 14:50, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

One can readily understand that "hose" - in a "garden" context - could easily refer to "a flexible tube conveying water" (indeed, it is the most common sense, and the Wiktionary entry for it reflects this). By your logic, we would include any common collocation as long as at least one of the words had more than one meaning. ---> Tooironic 12:10, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Right. Delete.​—msh210℠ 16:25, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

• My criteria are not ‘can someone easily work out the meaning of this?’, but rather ‘are these two words often used together in this language to designate a single specific idea?’, which is what I mean by idiomaticity and I suppose what I mean by a ‘set term’. Is this one? Maybe...the Wikipedia article is under this name, but on the other hand most people usually probably just call it ‘a hose’, so....I will abstain, I don't think it does much harm but equally I don't think it's greatly required. Ƿidsiþ 19:04, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

• Keep, I think. My parents don't have what I'd call a "garden" – they don't have flowers or vegetables or herbs or the like — but they do have what I would call a "garden hose". If I heard one of the other potential phrases you give, "yard hose" or "backyard hose" or "outside hose", I'd probably understand it (at least, given enough context), but they're not phrase I'd use, and I don't remember ever coming across them. —Ruakh_TALK 19:16, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

  I would read this collocation as referring to a garden-type hose, a hose of the type usually used in gardening. When the audience includes a large portion of middle-class homeowners and their families, this is a handy way to refer to it.

  But it does not seem to be a set phrase. If this were a set phrase, I would not expect "fire and garden hose" to outnumber "fire hose and garden hose" at bgc, as it does, by 175 to 18. Among lemmings, only Wordnet and its fellow travelers include this.

• Delete DCDuring TALK 20:15, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

  But if it is "a hose of the type usually used in gardening," then again the signification (the actual type of hose) will be understood only by those who already know it. The meaning seems clearly not compositional, since "garden" implies nothing about diameter or material. And although a reasonable Martian might guess that a "garden hose" is a hose of the garden sort, only someone already familiar with the term and/or its referent could plausibly guess to what sort of hose it refers. -- Visviva 07:08, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

Ruakh, you're arguing that it's a specific type of hose that can't be guessed from garden + hose (like barbecue sauce). Maybe. But I don't think of it as a specific type of hose, just a hose whose primary function is in the garden. — This unsigned comment was added by Mglovesfun (talk • contribs) at 06:34, 14 May 2010.

I a way, it is a certain type of hose. In tables of data about hoses and hose material, "garden hose" seems to be how the industry refers to the tubing used to make garden hoses. Thus there may be an uncountable sense, restricted to use in technical and business contexts, that is "idiomatic": "tubing suitable for the manufacture of household garden hoses".

But a "garden hose" used for another purpose might be called a "hose", "water hose", or "garden hose" (a hose I have for gardening, a hose that was sold for gardening, a hose someone might use for gardening, a hose of the most common type). It is not obvious that this is an idiom. My evidence above argues against it being a set phrase. It is somewhat evocative, having been used by President FD Roosevelt in 1940 to justify US aid to the UK before US entry into WWII and in similes such as "would be like trying to put out a fire raging in a New York skyscraper with a pail and a garden hose.".

If the countable sense is wiktionary-worthy, should we be specifying what accounts for its being a genus of standardized products (mass-produced, standard lengths, standard end fittings, designed for normal household water pressure)? DCDuring TALK 11:18, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

I'm wearing my house-coat and my garden hose. —Michael Z. 2010-05-15 06:47 z

Well, seeing that one of the meanings of garden is pubic hair, I can see how some people might be confused. But the vast majority of people familiar with the term garden hose know it to be a hose of a certain diameter that is typically used in residential settings or sometimes for cleaning of windows or floors of retail stores, etc. That's what the entry is for, to show that the phrase has a particular meaning that is more than just "sum of parts". Incidentally, I had never heard of the term (deprecated template usage) hosepipe which apparently is a synonym of garden hose. Had it been "hose pipe", would the arguers for deletion here have argued that phrase is merely SoP since everyone knows it's just a hose connected to a pipe? Facts707 07:23, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

Hmmm. We don't have hose bib, power washer, or power washing either. Does anyone think these are SoP? Because I plan to add them at some point when I have time. Facts707 08:29, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

On closer look, yard hose does not necessarily mean garden hose and could mean either a hose in a residential yard or a hose in a train yard. So entry not useful. Similarly, backyard hose seems to just mean a hose in someone's backyard as opposed to one in the front yard. So no point in that one either. Facts707 09:57, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

And a garden hose is a hose used in a garden. (And that entry is looking more encylopedic by the day.) ---> Tooironic 23:24, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

Move to Wikipedia DCDuring TALK 01:41, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

Keep. If none of my other arguments are sufficiently persuasive, I think we should keep it because it is a synonym of (deprecated template usage) hosepipe. Do we have a policy on this, similar to WT:COALMINE? Facts707 15:37, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

We also have front yard, which an English speaker could presumably figure out from the two words separately, but which is apparently deserving of an entry. Facts707 15:39, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

• When I acquired my current house, it did not have a garden, but it did have a garden hose. And by that I mean no more or less than "the kind of hose they will sell you at the hardware store if you ask for a garden hose." That such an understood meaning of the phrase exists seems like the very definition of idiomaticity, but, confusingly, it also seems to be used above as an argument for deletion. To break it down:
  • Not all garden hoses are in or of gardens. Anecdotes aside, there are numerous non-garden-related quotes on b.g.c., e.g. "Use a garden hose to insulate electric wire."
  • Not all hoses that are in or of gardens are garden hoses. There are other types of hose that are used in gardening contexts; differing approaches to irrigation, for example, may involve either a soaker hose or a pressure hose. It is even possible to envision a fire hose being used for irrigation/mulch/lining, but only in the most far-fetched scenarios would it ever be referred to as a "garden hose" ... even if the fire hose had been purchased specifically for garden use.
• I can see no reason not to keep. -- Visviva 07:08, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

Nonsense. How about “I'm using this fire hose as my garden hose?” Garden hose is the normal kind of hose used in the garden. If a guy once used a garden hose at his shop, that doesn't suddenly make the term idiomatic. The SOP term means “hose for the garden,” not “hose never ever used outside of gardens.” Delete —Michael Z. 2010-06-03 19:41 z

I don't know of English usage, but in Finnish puutarhaletku (calque of garden hose) refers to a certain type of hose, i.e. a hose designed for low pressure water distribution outdoors (does not tolerate heat, chemicals or pressure but is resistant to UV light and has a light armoring that looks like a net). The name comes from the principal use of this type of hose, but it is called puutarhaletku even if used for some other purpose. Of course I might call any hose that I happen to use in my garden puutarhaletku, but if I go to hardware store and use the word there, it has a specific meaning. If that's the case in English, the entry should probably be kept after rewriting the definition. The second definition is by far too specific. --Hekaheka 03:31, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

keep per WT:COALMINE as gardenhose is attestable. -- Prince Kassad 18:53, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

However attestable it is, it is neither attested nor is it in any OneLook reference. DCDuring TALK 20:17, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

That would be an issue for RfV if you really want to challenge it. -- Prince Kassad 20:18, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

Invoking WT:COALMINE without support of either authority or attestation seems to me to debase our processes. The point of these efforts is to improve valid entries as much as eliminate suspect ones. If the argument depends on WT:COALMINE than the premises of the argument should be sound, as they are not yet in this case. If we are to maintain some kind of lexicographic integrity, we should by default be citing entries that are not in other dictionaries. It is all the more necessary to avoid having entries of questionable value be made for rhetorical purposes. DCDuring TALK 22:24, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

In this case, garden hose appears in COCA 275 times, and gardenhose appears 0 times. I hope that whatever Google hits there may be do not prove to be scannos or blunders. DCDuring TALK 22:28, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

At BNC "garden hose" appears 17 times and "gardenhose" appears 0 times. Is there another term used in the UK for such a hose? DCDuring TALK 22:35, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

At BNC hosepipe gets 70 hits and hose pipe gets 15. Our entry says it is synonymous with garden hose. DCDuring TALK 22:40, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

If it makes you any happier, I've cited gardenhose. -- Prince Kassad 22:47, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

And cited it well for its existence, I think. I am indeed sooo happy now. Thank you. DCDuring TALK 04:10, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

• I note that the countable sense for garden hose is ridiculously overspecified for a dictionary definition: "A length of hose as above, usually with a male connector on one end and a female connector on the other end, which can carry water from a hose bib (a water faucet or spigot usually located on an exterior wall of a house or other building) for use on a garden or lawn." It is extremely unlikely that anyone could cite such a definition because the large number of attributes and accompaniments specified. Wouldn't a definition like "A length of garden hose as above, usually used to convey water, as for watering a garden." be better. I expect that further improvements are possible. DCDuring TALK 04:10, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

kept as per WT:COALMINE -- Prince Kassad 00:16, 10 February 2011 (UTC)